


Exit Music (For a Film)

by weekendsareforwhiskey



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Westworld Fusion, F/M, I'm such an HBO lover it's awful, y'all can thank Radiohead and Ramin Djawadi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-03-06 07:55:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13406814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weekendsareforwhiskey/pseuds/weekendsareforwhiskey
Summary: An early 20th Century infidelity AU with a bit of a twist.





	1. Act I

**Author's Note:**

> If you ship Sansa and Willas this one isn't for you. I just needed to tag it for the PxS lovers who wouldn't want to read any scenes where Willas and Sansa are together.

There was a place that they’d visit every summer. Winterfell. Their estate in the forest north of a bustling little town. A perfect town with cobblestone streets, beautiful store windows, a train that never broke down; it was one of those white picket fence towns where everyone knows everyone else. Knows what they wore to the store, knows what they fought about next door, knows who’s engaged to whom and when they’ll have their baby. There’s a jazz bar at the edge, the shadowy outskirts on the east side of town. The forest behind it encroaches on it but doesn’t enshroud it as it does with Winterfell in the north.

  
Everyone knows about the bar, but they don’t talk about it in pleasant company. It’s whispered that the cobblestones are always the cleanest in front of the seediest places…where there’s money enough to sweep the dirt and debris away. And there’s not a spot of dirt or sawdust on the ones outside of the only jazz bar in the area. The other bars spelling it out how seedy and cheap they are with their doors constantly open, brawls outside, the men of the town getting their one night out a week to do whatever they please. But it was the bright red cursive letters of the otherwise nondescript building that caught Sansa’s eye one day on a scenic route walk into town.

  
“Mom, that’s your name! Do you own that place?”

  
“No. And Sansa, don’t ever go there. Don’t walk down this street by yourself. Ever. Stay on the side of town that’s closest to Winterfell. This area isn’t for people like us.”

  
The rushed words. The tense tone. A surefire way to ensure that a 12-year-old girl would do just the opposite. Her mother may have never taken her on that route again but Sansa didn’t always walk with her mother.

  
While she was smart enough not to attempt entrance in the club at such a young age, Sansa always found a way to pass by and notice a new detail every time. The buzz of the neon sign, if the street was quiet enough during the day. The two stories of red brick making it seem like any reputable business within the town. Clusters of moths that hang around the one electric lamp on the street, a rare commodity in a town that reveled in old fashion. A lemon tree, freshly planted, in the back lawn of the building where a shiny car parked at random hours of the day. The ivy that clung to the open upstairs windows and the first floor of darkened windows, blacked-out so any passerby could only hear a bass drumbeat and laughter at night. Nothing else. But Sansa never heard that beat herself for she always had to pass during the day when no one was around. She could investigate as much as she pleased…with her mother in the back of her mind stopping her when she got too curious.

  
Sometimes she’d see a man outside smoking a cigarette underneath the tree. The white paper filled with tobacco tucked between knuckles so vividly purple that she could see the bruises from the street. Grey tendrils of curly smoke disappearing into the leaves and lemons above. He’d glance at her, nod his head, and watch her ride away. A girl like her would never blatantly disobey in a dangerous way, just the innocent scurrying by on the way home. Or an adventure out to the far side of town, her bike basket shaking in time to the imaginary beat in her head.

  
Then 6 years later, with her parents both gone, Robb and Jon working to ensure they wouldn’t have to rely on the inheritance too soon, Sansa realized that nothing was stopping her. So she went.

  
*  
“Catelyn?”

  
The first word she hears directed towards her when she’s been inside long enough to have an awful drink in her hand. It’s the first one she saw on the menu and blurted out in the darkened room her flirting had just allowed her access into.

  
The hard “cat” isn’t a normal one, not in this place, even within the club named Cat’s, so the man questioning whether or not she was her mother must have known her mother. The tone of astonishment leads her to believe that maybe he has heard the news and doesn’t quite believe what he’s seeing.

  
“No. I’m her daughter.”

 _Or was. Is that how it should be? I was her daughter. But then she got murdered in a car accident._  

No that’s not how that worked. She is still Catelyn and Ned Stark’s daughter. No matter if they don’t exist anymore. Her memory is the only place they exist. And the memory of this man in front of her.

“Sansa." His voice loses a bit of the emotion that his  _Catelyn_ carried but it's not the tone one uses when they meet a stranger. Perhaps he remembers the preteen on her bike. 

  
Newspapers had printed the family name. The wealthy orphans who would have been left in the care of the eldest brother. Robb. Sansa. Arya. Bran. Rickon. And their orphaned cousin Jon. Jon who’d been orphaned twice now. Hardened to dismiss emotional attachments. The Winterfell estate was hidden deep in the northern part of the forest, but everyone knew them. Everyone knew what their parents had helped create. Everyone already knew of the accident minutes after it occurred on the windy road. Printing it in the town newspaper was just peroxide in a gaping wound.

  
“I’m sorry I don’t think we’ve met before.”

  
“Petyr Baelish. I grew up with your mother. Worked with her. She was my partner.”

  
A hand extended. She almost lets him drop it in shame for whatever this interaction he’s trying to start is. But she was ingrained with manners from a young age and her hand rises to shake his. There are no bruises today. They’re pale and calloused but neat and clean. A strong hard grip on both sides. Neither Stark nor Tully would allow a weak handshake.

  
“How did you get in here?”

“What do you mean? I walked in.” She smiles cheekily.

  
He raises an eyebrow. “Well, the bouncers of my bar shouldn’t be letting an 18-year-old in.”

  
“Cat’s.” The _s_ hisses between her teeth. “Did you name your bar after my mother?”

“I loved her very much. We were inseparable when we were younger.”

  
A yes in more words than saying the actual word itself. The truth doesn’t seem like the first thing a stranger like him would tell her. She doesn’t believe him.

  
“Seems strange. All she’d ever said was to stay away from this place.”

  
“She was right.” He pulls out a pack of paper, tobacco, and rolls his own cigarette. “How did you get in?”

  
Sansa’s eyes investigate around her as she mulls over an answer. She’d memorized the outside in her childhood and there are hundreds of details on the inside she wants to commit to memory. A band plays a slow mournful tune. Their female lead crooning into the microphone. Couples holding each other tightly in one another’s arms. Swaying in circles. The smell of his smoke reaches her nose. She inhales and breathes in the burn. Her eyes don’t water though, immune to the acrid grey tendrils, barely visible in the dim lighting. She notices a moth on one of the bottles of alcohol, glowing green from the light behind it. The dull, soft brown on such a vivid green glass catching her eye. Trapped in an unnatural world.

  
“It doesn’t seem too bad in here.”

  
“You haven’t met the bad people yet.” There’s no irritation showing from his question going unanswered for the second time. Amusement seems to be the predominant emotion in his features. “Would you like a drink?”

  
“I have one,” she replies with a lift of her glass. The green liquid inside barely touched. A shiver, from the way he stares, held off with a small roll of her shoulders. _Bad_ seems to be right in front of her.

  
“You have absinthe. If you worked your way in here you at least deserve to try a drink you can handle.”

  
“I’ll be fine.”

  
“Well if you’ll be fine, why don’t you join me backstage? See what your mother never wanted you to see.”

  
She likes the sound of that. Appropriately blacken her soul with whatever mysteries lie behind the red velvet curtain. Whatever joining him entails. He hasn’t touched her since the handshake, one hand occupied with his cigarette, the other drumming in time against the bar. She can imagine him touching her. Can imagine him doing wicked things with those calloused hands she's heard rumors about. While Petyr Baelish doesn't ring any bells  _Littlefinger_ the boxer who owns one of the bars on the outskirts of town...that rings a bell. She can imagine liking it very much when he uses those talented hands in a different way than what he does to men in the ring. But the darkness in his stare has her wary. Wary enough to pay heed to her mother’s voice in her mind, faint, but there all the same. He exhales and inhales; the Irish Waterfall smoke trick doing a strange thing to her abdomen that attempts to combat her mother’s voice.

  
“Perhaps another time. I should get home.”

  
She wonders if this was his plan to get her out. His lips are quirked in a poisonous smirk. She wonders if Catelyn Stark’s voice is in his head too.

  
“I’ll hold you to that.” He reaches out to steady her when she stands. She can’t hold the pleasant shiver back this time. “You should get in just as easily next time.”

  
Maybe not.

  
*

  
“We need to personalize it more.”

  
“What do you mean? Is this another stupid request from them? He usually just creates-”

“I want a personal touch on it. Besides the name for the club, that was a good choice.”

  
“That wasn’t me that was him. Personal touches take more money sis.”

  
“Don’t fucking call me that. They’ve got it. Do what they want. Dramatize their proposed storyline a bit. I want more sex in the background too. Violence.”

  
“You know he hates when you-”

  
“Do what I want Jaime.”

  
*

  
The next time she stops by, the bouncer doesn’t even ask for her name. He steps aside, unhooks the velvet rope, and she’s in. Red curls pinned to one side of her head and a new blue dress. Robb doesn’t even question her when she leaves the house, just sits with Jeyne rocking on the front porch, a parallel picture of their mother and father less than a decade ago. Her brother is just happy that she’s doing something besides riding her bike all over town with nowhere to go. She’s finally found her destination after all those years of riding, but she isn’t sure that Robb needs to know where she’s parking her cherry red bicycle.

  
Her eyes scan the dim bar. It’s busier than the last time. Later as well; night rather than evening. The room isn’t packed with couples holding each other close on the dance floor. They’re entwined around one another in booths. She tries searching past the acts of debauchery for the silver mockingbird and silver temples. The singer onstage begins the real portion of her act and Sansa’s eyes follow the sequin dress’s path to the floor of the stage, take a peek at what lay underneath before she looks away, continues her search elsewhere again. There wasn’t time before to see the real action at Cat’s. She plans on amending that tonight.

“Looking for me sweetheart?”

  
“No.” The reply is succinct but sweet.

  
The strawberry blonde-haired boy’s bravado isn’t diminished. “Well, maybe you should be. I was definitely looking for you.”

  
“That’s nice.” She smiles, eyes him from the corner of her eye rather than dead on. A babyface on a man’s body. It definitely is a nice touch.

  
“Can I buy you a drink?”

  
_Can you?_ She wants to ask, but no boy likes a girl who corrects his grammar. “Sure.”

  
By the time the silver temples make their way on the floor she’s already two drinks in, making her way to the dance floor with Willas. She didn’t get a last name, but she also didn’t give her own. She catches Petyr’s eye from across the room and raises her eyebrows when she knows her partner isn’t looking.

  
_You kept me waiting_ hers say.

  
_Have your fun_ his say. He walks to a dark-haired man and holds out his hand. Strikes up a verbal conversation with him that ends the silent one with her.

  
But her attention goes back to Willas before she sees anything else.

  
“Good girls don’t usually come to this kind of a place.”

  
“I could probably say the same about good boys too. What’s your story?” There’s a moth on his shoulder, but he doesn’t seem to notice. She brushes it away, the soft wings crumpling under her touch as it inches off of Willas and falls to the floor. He eyes her touch with curiosity as she eyes the moth. “Well?”

  
They’re in the designated dance area. The only open space not crowded with private booths or the bar itself. There are no high top tables at Cat’s. Just intimate areas or open space. She pulls him close, steps one, two, three, and then pulls back again. His arm spins her around and they repeat the motion again. A more innocent dance than the acts displayed around them or onstage. After realizing that she’s leading, she allows him to control the moves. His dancing skills are adequate, but she supposes he probably spends more time in a classroom than a dancehall. He’s pale and skinny and taller than her, which is a feat for most of the men around her. “I breed horses,” he says. “Ride them. My family runs a track.”

  
“The one two towns away?” she asks. Her tone doesn’t display her disbelief. He’s lying to her but either he’ll end up telling her the truth later or this will go nowhere.

  
“Mhm,” he nods. “There’s an art to it really. Horse racing. Fast-paced and dangerous.”

  
“Oh I’m sure,” she smiles again. Her curls whip across his face when he pulls her too close, forcing her to stumble instead of step neatly. She catches Petyr’s eye again and wonders how well he dances. If he does. But he’s not the one she’s with right now. Not the one she should be paying attention to. “Do you want to talk or do you want to dance?”

  
“Honestly,” Willas smiles, all dimples and bright white teeth, “I’d rather talk. Is that alright or do you wanna dance with someone else?”

  
There’s loneliness in him that she sees in herself. It was hidden beneath the forced machismo he had maintained for their first few drinks. So eager to please her but still willing to let her go. He gives her a choice. There hasn’t been anyone like that in her life. Everyone else tells her what to do. What they want her to do. What she has to do. With his hand in hers again they seek out a quiet corner. Two more drinks appear at their table before he can get up to get them himself.

  
“On the house.” The server says and leaves them to their conversation in the back of the bar under watchful eyes.

*

  
“You’re going to laugh.” He looks at her from under his long, dainty eyelashes, with his head pointed down in shame.

  
“I promise I’ll try not to unless it’s really funny.”

  
“The entire night I’ve been fixated on something. I’m an academic actually, not a horse breeder, or rider for that matter. Let me just get that out right now. I lied,” he laughs timidly. “I study history and the arts and all sorts of classes. Grammar is one aspect of them. And I opened up with _can_ instead of _may._ Which is a dumb thing to point out but I know I absolutely had the ability to buy you a drink, but-”

She’s cut him off with a kiss that he doesn’t reciprocate as he’s too shocked. She pulls away to smile at him, “You’re a bad liar, but I don’t mind.” Fingers skim his face. His spotless beautiful Adonis face. “You’re slightly ridiculous and very drunk. I like it.”

  
“I don’t drink that often. My brother Loras is the drinker. And the smoker. And the horse rider. And the _everything_ really. Even a twin, but Margaery's a woman so it's different. And he’s younger than me which is great for my pride. He was supposed to be here with me tonight. Well, he was with me, but-” then he cuts himself off. “Can we kiss again?”

  
“I don’t know, _can_ we?” she smiles deviously.

  
He laughs at the joke and leans forward, over eager and over-compensating. He kisses nothing like she imagines Petyr does, that mysterious strange friend of her mother’s, and yet she feels affection to this boy. This kind stranger who has drunk too much, who doesn’t make her abdomen twist and turn just at the thought of him, but he could. He has the potential but she doesn’t want potential tonight. She wants experience and darkness. Maybe potential can wait for another time. 

  
“Shouldn’t you be getting home?” she plies him. “If you’re a good Tyrell I would presume there are curfews to follow.”

  
“I could say the same for you Miss Stark.”

  
“You’ve found me out.”

  
“The papers really love tragedy. Small town. Not that many Sansas.”

  
“Very true,” she smiles. “But nonetheless here we both are. In a place neither of us should really be at.”

  
“Maybe we should amend that,” he smiles bashfully.

  
She kisses him again. A quick goodbye. “If we see each other again. Then it's meant to be.”

  
*

  
“All done? It’s only 1am.”

By the time she's gotten Willas on his way with just a few more token kisses she makes her way back in to find Petyr in the spot she sat at the first time. 

  
“Well, you can only talk for so long when there’s something else on your mind.”

  
“What else is on your mind sweetheart?”

  
He’s smoking again. Punctuating the sweetheart with pursed lips, blowing it away from her. Adding to the haze in the room. It’s emptying quickly. People paying for their checks, people buying private rooms for the next hour or two.

  
“What is it that you do here? Besides the shows. The different…entertainment that people can’t find anywhere else in town.”

  
“I provide a space for whatever it is people feel they can’t partake in outside for whatever price I deem worthy.”

  
“Do you ever offer anything for free?”

  
“I don’t offer anything for free.”

  
“Ever?”

  
“Never.”

  
The silver necklace around her neck catches a bit of light when she tilts her head. “You just gave me free drinks tonight.”

  
He grins. “I didn’t think we were discussing anything as simple as drinks.”

  
“Is anything simple in here?”

  
The charm on her necklace is hidden beneath her dress and he allows his eyes to linger under the guise of investigating the jewelry. A smile similar to his appears on her lips. Mirror images on mouths. Her red wiped away by over-eager kisses from a stranger turned acquaintance. All that’s left is her natural pink. She breaks his reverie when she reaches for his cigarette- burned down almost to his fingertips- and he lets her have it. He'll let her have anything. After she inhales once, she stubs it out. “Do you have another? I’m afraid I don’t normally smoke.”

  
“Probably some backstage. If not, I have plenty in my bedroom.”

  
“Perfect. Lead the way.”


	2. Act II

There’s a garden near the town library. A little house lies towards the back of the thousands of flowers, so small that it’s more cottage than house. Nondescript on the outside but warm, inviting, and cluttered with trinkets on the inside.  The home of the woman that Sansa meets once every week at three o’clock in the afternoon and never a second later. She’s leaning her bike against a tree, batting away fluttering moths, who seem confused about the time of day, near the entrance when she hears Nan’s voice. But the woman isn’t greeting Sansa, she’s in conversation with another. She spies strawberry blonde curls and hears a laugh like wind chimes. There’s no such thing as coincidence to Sansa and sees her story must progress sooner rather than later. 

“Oh, Sansa you’re here!” Nan smiles widely. Her teeth too perfect for someone her age. They should be rotten, covered up with faux orthodontics, but it's the same smile she had in her twenties. “I’m afraid Miss Tyrell and I have already taken my stroll a little early. But please stay for tea.”

“ _Please_ Nan, just call me Margaery. I won’t stand on ceremony with you,” she laughs again and the sound is just a higher register than her brother’s. It grates her ears with how similar they are. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Sansa.”

They walk into the house. Warmer than outside. The breezy air that blew through Sansa's hair as she rode her bike blocked by the walls filled with photos of Nan’s past. Walls of her adventures. Lion taming, plane flying, fire eating, mountain climbing, things that don't befit the image of the woman in front of Sansa today. But there's still an adventurous spark in her eye that she admires. Envies. 

“For me as well. I’m surprised we haven’t met before in a place like this. What brings you to Nan’s today?”

“My brother, Willas, is studying in the library. Doing some research for his dissertation.”

“Oh, how interesting. What’s it about?”

Margaery shrugs, “He’s told me a hundred times but I always forget the particulars. Something about the English language and an author who wrote with it a long, long time ago. I’m not the best sister sometimes.”

“I’m sure you are,” Sansa smiles and lets a faux laugh escape her lips that matches her opponent’s. “Do you study as well?”

“Not in the formal sense,” Margaery laughs again. The sound continues to turn from wind chimes to a tires screeching in her ears as the woman continues to punctuate every sentence with one. “I had tutors at home, but school was never meant for me. Instead of maths and science, Latin and composition, I study human nature. There’s so much material to go over and it never gets outdated.”

Sansa’s eyes meet Margaery’s. They both use her silence to sip from the porcelain teacups. Biding her time until the coincidental appearance at Nan’s can come to fruition with the filling of the fourth teacup when Willas comes around.

**

He meets them that day. Just ten minutes past the hour. He’s flustered and caught off guard. But Sansa pries information from him. Listens to him while he lights up with the possibility that he can pass some of his knowledge onto someone who’s actually interested in it. Someone whose mind he can fill with his thoughts on old, irrelevant material. How he believes it can change the world. When Margaery conveniently excuses herself to look at Nan’s photo album for the hundredth time he asks her to accompany him- and his siblings- to the grand opening of a new theater they’ve been invited to. She says yes and it tailspins in a whirl.

They see shows at the theater. They go to dinners. Expensive meals that they trade off on because she refuses to let him pay for everything when she can provide just as much as him. His eyes widen in amazement as if she’s some foreign creature. Then they glaze over with affection immediately after. There are boat rides with Margaery and Loras where they all act civil and proper until they’re under the shade of the trees on the banks of the river and Sansa must act as though the pipe that Loras hands her is something she’s never encountered before. Must join Willas in abstaining while Margaery and Loras test her. They go to the family race track and Sansa turns her head so the big hat shields Willas from her yawn. They share private kisses and quaint public displays of affection. Nothing like their first night together which he seems to shove to the back of his mind. As if it never happened and they just met by pure happenstance. He courts her in all of the wrong ways but she accepts the coveted invitation to dine at the Tyrell Manor anyway.

It’s that night after she shone like the North Star that she is for his mother and father and grandmother, that he shows her the library. Shows her his true home within the massive one. The room full of books, maps, pens and ink, and most important of all knowledge. He earnestly tells her how much he loves her. She listens and parrots the appropriate words at the appropriate time waiting for the moment she can leave the stifling, stuffy room.

**

The velvet beneath her is blood red and, for the number of times she’s secretly visited Cat’s over the past few months, she’s never found herself sitting in one of the booths. This is one place Willas has never returned with her. She makes these trips by herself, late at night when all of the _good_ people have gone to bed after the shows and the polite dancing and dinner dates. But Sansa’s not one of those good people who go to bed and act like they aren’t dreaming of being where she is. This blood red booth is unfamiliar though. The bar or backstage or the bedroom are where she’d be found if anyone needed her. But there’s only one person who ever needs her there. There’s only one person she needs there. Until tonight, it seems, when Petyr brings her over to one of the booths and has her sit down.

“Think of a pseudonym. I’ll be back to introduce you to some special friends.”

“And why do I need a pseudonym?”

“They’re connected about town, quietly, but there’s still a connection.”

“But why does that matter?” She whines.

“You said you wanted to play. Just think of a name. Don’t break character.”

She ponders his attitude, his command, and then a name pops into her head. One she’s tried to keep at bay. Out of sight, out of mind. But it’s the only one she can think of when Petyr walks back with a beautiful, dark-haired couple who almost look like they could be brother and sister. Their facial structure, smooth hair, and dark enticing eyes are similar. But the way they’re touching is not the friendly touch of a brother and sister.

“And what’s your name?” The man asks.

“Alayne.”

Petyr’s mouth tightens but he holds out a hand in a presentation of Sansa.

“My partner.” It takes him a beat to get the name out. “Alayne. Alayne this is Ellaria Sand and Oberyn Martell.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” She holds out her hand and smiles with a raised eyebrow when Oberyn pulls it towards his mouth for a kiss. “Very old-fashioned.”

He shrugs. “In some ways.” He moves up her wrist for another kiss while he joins her in the booth “In others…”

“Will you two be joining us tonight?” Ellaria asks while she leans on Petyr’s shoulder. Sansa eyes the movement while Oberyn continues placing kisses on her arm. More of a nuisance than a turn on, but she politely allows it anyway. “It’s been a while seen we’ve seen you Petyr. You bring a little excitement that we’ve been missing.”

“And you don’t take offense to that?” Sansa asks when Oberyn’s lips get to her shoulder. He’s curling up, tightening around her like a snake and she lets it happen if only to see the way it makes Petyr’s eyes as dark as his companions.  

“Ellaria gets plenty of excitement from me. I have no doubt of that. We all need a little something extra sometimes.” The bristly hair above his lips feels different on the nape of her neck. It should feel the same as Petyr’s but it doesn’t. His doesn’t scratch her and she wonders why. Wishes they would since the small pain is half the pleasure of a man with facial hair. “Wouldn’t you say the same Alayne?”

“Perhaps.” She smiles and her eyes close when the pleasurable sensation of his kisses begins. They’re in a middle booth. Anyone can see them from across the bar, anyone can see them from the dance floor, and anyone can see them from the stage if they weren’t otherwise occupied. They’re on display like she’s never been before. “What do you say Petyr? It sounds as though you’ve done this before?” She opens her eyes again and smirks. “Is it something I would enjoy?”

His lips glisten after his tongue slides along them and she knows they’ll chap soon if he doesn’t stop licking them so often. He holds Ellaria by the hand and brings her to the booth with him to sit down. In one quick movement, he tugs Oberyn away from Sansa and she smiles briefly at his jealousy. Then her mouth opens a fraction in shock and awe when he meets Oberyn’s lips.

A heat begins low in her stomach, a solid knot melting pleasantly, going lower as the men continue to kiss. No fight for dominance, no show of machismo, just a passionate kiss similar to one that Petyr’s shared with her before. Similar to what Oberyn’s kisses seemed to be leading to before Petyr took him for himself.

When Petyr eventually pulls away, a smirk on his red lips, he says, “I’m not sure. Is it?”

It isn’t long before a key is procured, a door is opened, and the four step into a private room.

**

“Why did you choose her name?”

The moon’s gone. The dark hour before dawn is upon them. There was no invite extended to Ellaria and Oberyn to stay. Just an hour and a half of fun and then the other couple was out the door. And Sansa and Petyr were back in the privacy of his room. They’ve been in his bed almost long enough for her to fall asleep but there are still chemicals rushing through her blood. Keeping her by his side. There are still thoughts and memories that won’t go away.

“Our discussions aren’t always just between us. There’s no need to go into my reasoning.” She twists onto her side to face him. A waft of vanilla and sweat wafts his way and he wonders when she got a chance to apply perfume. She skims her fingertips along his chest, the only part of her body that touches him.

He looks down at her. “You know how to speak in code just as well I as do.”

“That’s not the case. You know code much better than I do.” A poke on the dark scar tissue accentuates her point. “I could never do what you do.”

He slips an arm under her and wraps the other around her. Their skin touches; their individual coldness meeting the warmth of the other. A sigh escapes her lips when he makes her change position again, seeking comfort from her chest. His head rests over her heart and for a second he can’t hear her heartbeat. Then the quiet steady beats make their way to his ear. “Why Alayne?”

She breathes in, his head rising and falling with the motion of her chest. “Hers was the first name that came to my mind. I couldn’t get it out, couldn’t think of another in time. You can’t just spring things like that on me. I need a little time.”

“Some actress you are,” he teases. Trying to change the melancholic conversation he’s started. Trying to take back what he’s already said. “Can’t even think of another name in the moment.”

“I’m not an actress anymore.”

And she’s breaking the rules. Alluding to the past that shouldn’t exist. He supposes he broke the rules when he asked _why Alayne_. There is no past in their current reality. Only the present and the future.

She uses his silence to break another rule.

“Will you tell me another story about my mother?”

He pulls away. She’s the one who seeks comfort now from his past. “When?”

“When you first met her. What was she like?” The sheets rustle when she scoots up against the headboard. A clatter on the floor signals something falling off the bed but neither checks to see what misplaced object found itself there in the first place.

 _The spitting image of you at that age_ he keeps to himself. Tries to remember any concrete detail of young Catelyn Tully. Before she turned into who she was when she died. Who he made her.

“She was very kind. Sweeter than honey. Protective of Lysa and, later on, me.” He stretches, toes extending under the sheets, hands reaching above him when he sits against the headboard as well. Sansa pours a glass of something, but he doesn’t pay attention to the contents when he tosses it down. The water isn’t as soothing as whiskey would be in this moment but she doesn’t offer him any so he places the empty glass on his nightstand. “At Hoster’s insistence, I was supposed to learn how to fight. He thought I was weak, spending too much time playing the prince in Cat and Lysa’s make-believe games. So he made sure a servant took me to a gym to get beaten to a pulp by a vindictive trainer who hated me for who I was.”

“What do you mean?” Sansa’s lips touch the grey temple. A small gesture he’s grown fond of in the past month that he leans into. His shoulder dips with the weight of her head when she leans on him.

“Just a spindly little orphan boy,” he laughs shallowly, “indebted to a rich family. I didn’t deserve the respect that came with the street credibility of being poor since I was a charity case. I was an outsider in a place I could have been accepted if it weren’t for Hoster shoving his money gleefully to the trainer. I think he had half a mind that I’d get killed in the ring and he was just paying the man to murder me slowly.”

“But he didn’t succeed.” She kisses his neck. Sleep slowly making its way through her body. Eyes fluttering to fight the dreamlike state while she listens to his voice. Raspy from lack of sleep.

“No, he didn’t. That’s where your mother and her sincere kindness came in. She and Lysa came to the gym where I was every day. They saw how badly I was beaten, how hard and unfair the lessons were, and took pity. Lysa helped with my bruises and bones. She was the Tully sister interested in health, science, medicine. She knew she’d never be a doctor, had a small chance of being a nurse if she didn’t honor her duty to become a wife. Surprisingly Cat wasn’t like that at first. She valued her family, felt a duty to them, but she was an inventor and wanted to remain an inventor. So she started constructing things to help me. Figured out ways to make me stronger at home.

“Little did I know that there were other reasons she was helping me. If she made me stronger so I could stay there, continuing fighting, and she could continue to meet up with a boy that her father would never approve of.  Lysa informed me of the last time she mended my diminishing bruises. She was to be married and if I didn’t plan on returning her affections, didn’t plan on running away with her she said she’d never see me again. Our last meeting she left with me with the cruel truth about Cat.”

“Was the man my father?” Sansa asked quietly.

Petyr smiles, realizes he’s not telling her about Cat at all. He always retreats to explaining his pain, his suffering when it comes to Cat. Hardly tells her the good parts, always the bad.  

“No. His name was Brandon. While your mother was married to him, after she had Robb, she suffered from depression. She sought me out. We had a brief affair. Brandon found out. She remarried. Had you soon after. Then she joined me and we created our company.”

The story is a brief version of the truth. A synopsis. The back of a book. Reviews not included but coloring the summary of that messy time in both of their lives.

“I never knew any of that. She said Robb was Lysa’s son. That she adopted him when Lysa and her husband died.”

“That was one of many lies Cat told to cover up any unhappiness in her life. She tended to do that too. Anything sour needed to be made sweet.”

“Are you saying Robb is your son?”

“No,” Petyr laughs bitterly. “You know I'm not Robb’s father.”

And it’s back to the broken rule. _Alayne_. They never talk about Alayne.

Sansa’s stomach turns. Her head lifts from Petyr’s shoulder. “Why would she do all of that? Still become your partner and act like none of that had happened?”

Petyr laughs again. Sansa’s outrage is a mockery when he looks at their position. Although none of this is real for her. The life of her mother was real to her. He tries to understand from her point of view. The pieces of her life that seemed somewhat perfect were never truly as perfect as she believed. Nothing about her life has ever been what she believed even when she started to take control. Her control isn’t real though. Just make-believe.

“The past is just memories that propel us forward. They aren’t meant to sink us. A trampoline, not an anchor.” He tries to be positive for a moment. “Your mother and I both enjoyed telling stories and inventing, creating…She was kind,” he kisses her shoulder, “until she wasn’t.” _And then she was dead._

A breath of a laugh escapes her nose, “In another life, you might have been my father if-”

She leans into him again, sinking down low, pulling him underneath the sheets to cover up her misstep, comforting him because of the words left unsaid. The cold, _sterile_ truth.  

“Perhaps. Perhaps she’d reject me in every life.”

“I won’t say that I’m sorry about that.”

“No. Neither will I.”

He holds her closer, face hidden in her hair, arms clasped just tight enough around her waist. She hums in contentment, pulls his hands to her mouth to place kisses on the bruised knuckles. She won’t ask him to explain whether they’re from the boxing ring or something else. Even if she wants to see him in action someday.

“Would you like to hear a happier story from my past?”

“Yes,” she replies with a kiss on his hand. When she returns his bruised hands to her waist he begins.

“There once was a prince of dragonflies. He watched over them, sang songs to him, told them stories, watched their young, mended their wings and sewed the gold, the silver, the metallic blue back into them when they faded. He had a gentle touch and treated them as his own in their tiny home near the clear blue lake at the bottom of the mountain. One day, as he was laying a lily pad resting place for one of the elderly that had lost its ability to fly, a little bird flew into the trees near the lake. He’d been singing a tune, one that had been stuck in his head for so long he no longer knew where it originated from.

“He’d grown weary of birds, as their appetite consisted of those he protected, but the bird just moved about in the trees, listening to his song. As he laid the dragonfly to rest the bird joined him, harmonizing with his melody, then flew away quick as she had come. Soon the bird created a routine. She’d fly to the tree near the lake, listen to whatever tune he sang or hummed, and then join him. One day she’d even flown down on his shoulder. The routine changed. He’d gotten so used to her presence that he began leaving seed and berries out for her. Every morning she’d come to land on his shoulder and stay with him as he did his work or relaxed by the water. But every night she’d fly away. He urged her to stay, but just as the sun began to set she’d fly away.”

“What kind of bird was she?” Sansa interrupts.

Petyr smiles, “A mockingbird.”

“Aren’t they nocturnal?”

“There’s a prince of dragonflies and you’re questioning the bird’s sleeping habits?”

“Don’t be mean,” she smiles since he can’t see it. But he can hear it in her voice so he continues.

“So the sun would set and the _mockingbird_ would fly into the night. She flitted away, but he found that he needed her always by his side. One night he followed her. Her wings were faster than he could run so the dragonflies helped him. They buzzed into the night carrying him deep into the forest. Soon it grew too deep and dark for them and they left him to his own devices. He attempted to follow the bird’s trail, but it grew cold. He had lost her. He sang their melody to coax her out of hiding, to lead her to him. He paced in the forest, not daring to go further than the portion he was in. He sang and sang hoping the mockingbird would fly to his shoulder.” Petyr’s fingertips skim along her waist going from hipbone to hipbone. His voice gets lower, more gravelly. “But his melody drew the attention OF something as dark and terrifying as the middle of the woods. A wolf, darker than the shadows it emerged from growled at the prince; a warning to stay away. The prince didn’t listen; he needed to find the bird. He wanted her. The wolf didn’t give a second warning. He struck the prince!” Petyr squeezes her waist and her whole body jolts against his chest.

She whines, “Absolutely uncalled for. You said this was a happy story.”

“Sorry sweetling, every good story has some element of terror. I have to make sure you don’t fall asleep.”

“I won’t.” She turns her head to kiss his chin, rough with the beginnings of an unshaved beard. “Go on.”

He holds her still, not letting her turn completely. “The wolf’s claws went straight across the prince’s chest. He didn’t need to do anything else when the prince fell to the ground gasping for air. As his blood left his body and pooled around him he heard their melody, but it wasn’t a bird it was a girl. She knelt down and mended his body and sang, sewed him together as she’d watched him sew the dragonfly wings together. Then she told him her own story.

“A wizard had fallen in love with her and when she didn’t return his affections he cursed her. She would live out the rest of her days as a mockingbird by day, only becoming a human at night when she was forced back in the woods. The prince pointed out that mockingbirds were meant to sing at night and not during the day. The girl smiled sadly and said the wizard wasn’t very smart.”

Sansa laughs at his out of character addition. He kisses her hair again before he continues on.

“The prince of dragonflies, with his newly mended chest started to gain his strength back. The wolf was gone, off to hunt in the night so the girl walked him back as far as she could. Before he made the rest of the journey alone he asked her what he could do to free her. She shook her head and told him the only way she could escape the wizard was if someone killed the wolf. Only then could a kiss from a loved one break the spell.”

“As always with fairy tales,” Sansa smiles. “But one normally hears ‘true love’s kiss.’”

“Isn’t true love just the love from a loved one? Mother, father, sister, brother? It doesn’t have to be a lover.”

“If you end this story saying they’re siblings…” she trails off with her threat left unsaid.

“If you don’t interrupt maybe you’ll hear the end of it?”

She uses his hand to mime the zipping of her lips, letting his fingers linger. The fire in the hearth crackles even though he’s had a radiator installed; she always prefers the sound of logs falling than the ticking of the mechanical heating. They still aren’t facing one another, both unaware of the other’s expression, but she feels his lips on the top of her head feels his warm breath and knows he’s still at peace.

“When the girl said her goodbyes she promised the prince that she would come to him that day, but she had to return at night. _He_ promised her that he wouldn’t follow her ever again, wouldn’t come to her prison…some promises are meant to be broken though. With the help of his dragonflies, he gathered all of the deadly nightshade, a purple flower that encircled the edge of the forest. They were careful not to get any of the poisonous pollen on themselves and he used the powder and wilted petals to brew a small vial of potion. He worked through the night knowing that fighting the wolf would never work. The prince was too frail, too young, too weak. He needed to outsmart the wolf, plan an attack while it slept. He didn’t need much for a lethal dose. One drop on the wolf’s tongue would do the trick.

“He waited until the sun started to rise. The wolf would retire for the day after a long night’s hunt. It took the prince longer without the dragonflies’ help, but he found his way to a cave near the place he’d been attacked the night before. As he expected, the wolf was sound asleep, growls of slumber shaking the cave. When his eyes adjusted to the darkness the prince crept up to the wolf. He knew if the wolf woke he wouldn’t make it out alive, but if he could at least kill it with the poison the girl could escape and find someone who loved her to kiss her and break the wizard’s spell.

“The rancid smell of rotting flesh and blood laced the wolf’s mouth and made him want to retch as he lifted the muzzle. He dropped the three drops down the open mouth, watched the purple liquid trickle down and then he slowly backed away. But while the prince was deft and quiet the wolf still woke just as he reached the mouth of the cave. The prince turned on his heel and ran as fast as he could, dead leaves and branches crunching under his feet. He then felt a pain akin to the one that slashed his chest, but ten times worse. The wolf had bounded out of the cave and latched onto the prince’s shoulder with his teeth, tearing through the skin and down to the bone. As the wolf fell it whimpered a weak whine, as the prince rolled out from underneath its weight. He smiled when he saw the wolf’s broad, furry chest heave one last breath.

“A faint buzzing sound filled his ears and he felt himself being lifted off the ground. He drifted in and out of consciousness while the dragonflies repaid his kindness and carried him to a lily pad bed for his final resting place. The sun was shining with perfect puffy white clouds dotting the sky. It was a perfect day to die he thought. A mournful melody of tweets began and he caught a glimpse of the bird. She landed on his torn shoulder trying to mend it in her current form to no avail. The prince smiled, and with his last bit of life, leaned over to press a kiss against her feathers for the effort. A dazzling light, brighter than the sun erupted and a tall figure appeared at the edge of the lake.

“When the figure’s blinding entrance subsided it was easier to see the blonde curly-haired man who’d appeared. A billowy white shirt and tight brown pants made him look more like a pirate than a wizard, but the prince knew it could only be the one who’d cursed the girl. The wizard waved a hand and the prince’s wounds were healed without a trace. He crooked a finger and brought the lily pad to his side of the lake before he pulled the prince to his feet. The bird still latched onto his shoulder, black and white feathers ruffled in fear or irritation. The wizard looked at the two of them before he smiled sadly at the bird. ‘I’m sorry it couldn’t be me,’ was all he said before he waved a hand and disappeared. For a moment nothing happened and then the bird flew off into the trees. The prince thought he had lost her forever, but then she reappeared in human form clothed in a green dress. Her body could barely keep up with her feet as she bounded towards him and took him in her arms. She properly kissed him before thanking him. Then they continued on as before, singing and caring for the dragonflies as the prince and princess.”

Petyr stays quiet after he ends his story, listening for Sansa’s breathing, “Still awake?”

“Yes,” she replies softly. The thoughts in her head are still swirling as she thinks about his story, but she finally turns to kiss him properly. “You’re a good storyteller.”

“Not too long?”

“Maybe a little,” a chuckle falls from her lips before she dips her head to kiss his neck. “But I still loved it. I love listening to you talk. When did you first hear that story?”

“A long, long time ago when I was a still a romantic sap.”

“You still are.”

He shakes his head and coaxes her lips to his, tongue tracing the roof of her mouth before her own stops him. His hands seek hers out, but she moves them to his chest. The scar bisects his entire body and he’s never told her where it’s from but she knows tonight’s stories are a small step towards the real one. She’ll hear it some night when he’s feeling vulnerable or perhaps when he’s feeling strong.

**

It’s the next day that Willas proposes. Almost as if Petyr felt it coming. Knew the next part of her fairytale. Felt the bird being taken away from him because he knew that Willas would take her to this flowery tea room and break a porcelain cup with his shaking hands. The dark, milky liquid stains the tablecloth and he curses. They continue on. Her, waiting for him to cut the bullshit; him, trying to find the right moment. The room starts to empty as they continue their meaningless conversation and suddenly he stops midsentence to smile at her.

“I love you very much Sansa,” he states. The world of words always at his fingertips and he always resorts to simplicity in the moments when emotion overtakes him.

“I love you too Willas.” She eases him into it. Grabs his hand with her left hand instead of her right. Reaches across the table and strokes the bluish veins that show, just underneath his pale white skin. “Is there something you wish to discuss?”

“I want to ask you something. I’ve really wanted to ask you this since we met at that bar where neither of us belonged,” he laughs nervously. “Ever since you welcomed me so fully, took my family's eccentricities in stride, listened to my constant jabbering about the dead men of history, proven time and time again that you are the most patient, wonderful, intelligent, beautiful woman I will ever meet.” He sighs lost in his own mind. “I wrote this out and practiced- I even had two poems memorized and now they’re- they just don’t do you justice I realize. No words do. No words ever will.”

Her heart isn’t pounding as she knows it should be. His hand is slick in her grip and she just wants him to get on with it. “Will…” her eyelashes seem to bat of their own accord.  Mouth opening just slightly in anticipation. She’s an industrialized machine doing what she’s been engineered to do.  

“Will you do me the greatest honor and marry me? Be my wife, my partner?” The words don’t rush out for once. They’re measured. This part he feels still. Knows deeply in his heart.

“Yes, of course!” She simpers with teeth gleaming. Eyes sparkling. “Yes, Willas I will.”

He looks so awestruck, so enamored by her simple answer that he forgets the ring isn’t in his hand, he isn’t on his knee. She’s playing her part. Filling her role. But he isn’t.

“Oh God the ring!” His hands go to his pockets and it becomes a Vaudeville show when the box flies to the floor and he scrambles after it. She joins him, dirtying her dress on the tile when she stills his shaking hands. “I’ve mucked this up haven’t I?”

“Darling, it’s perfect. Now may I see the ring?” She watches him open the red velvet box to see a large diamond nestled amongst two circles of smaller ones. Two blue sapphires reside at the top of the large, outer circle while two rubies fill the bottom of the small, inner circle.

“The smaller diamonds represent our families. The rubies being my parents and the sapphires are yours. The diamonds of course as our siblings, that’s why yours are on the outside and mine remain close. Since we’re so much smaller.”

There’s more which he leaves unsaid. As in, with this ring, she’s losing her Stark identity before she even gains the Tyrell name. Casting off her family to the outskirts, while being enshrouded with diamonds by Willas.

“It’s not too much right? It seemed like a story in a ring. And you _love_ stories and jewelry.”

She looks at the ring, now tucked onto her finger perfectly. “It’s absolutely perfect.”

She almost believes it.

**

“Make it better.”

“How? How do I add more? I’m not even supposed to be overseeing this. We’re not the head writers. The star of this story and your brother are.”

“My brother’s busy. I’m telling you to make it better. So do it.”

“Is that what they want?”

“No.”

“Is that what _he_ wants?”

“It’s what I want Lancel. Do it. Find out who Alayne is too.”


	3. Act III

There’s a place even further out than Cat’s that hosts illegal events of all types. An abandoned building, changed hands so many times that everyone has a different memory of who was the most recent previous owner and what exactly took place in the ramshackle area. Sansa arrives at the match just a few minutes into it. She’s tucked the ring into her purse since it’s too heavy for her finger. Too gaudy as well. A powder blue dress that Petyr gave her -made of a material so light and sheer that it’s almost indecent- is the one she chose for this outing. The neckline is low and inviting while the modest skirt brushes against her ankles. A slight sense of regret about her outfit hangs on her though when she passes the empty “ticket booth.” Looking good for Petyr is on her mind yet she isn’t sure she wants him to see her. Wonders if this is something she should keep secret until he finds out for himself. Sees the lone woman in the audience of men.

The crowd is already raucous. Men are crammed into a giant, dirty open space, spitting and yelling at the boxers and each other. The smell of sweat pervades her senses, wiping out any of the left over smell of roses from the hour before. At first she can’t see anything in the ring. She sees the heads of men taller than her; the lighting is dim around the ring, with a spotlight above the rubber ropes shining on that which she can’t see. Men stand instead of using the metal chairs set up to make this look like a more decorous, proper event than it actually is. This is no three hour opera she has to politely keep her eyes open for and since the people around her won’t use the seats, she will. She steps up onto the chair, her skirt swishes about her ankles, and it’s wobbly but she steadies her heels and rises above the men around her.

Before she’d only been able to _hear_ the sound of rubber thudding against skin and bone, accompanied by the _boos_ and _ahs_ of the crowd. The sounds alone had chills running through her body but actually _seeing_ the two men hitting one another, creates goosebumps. Her skin pebbles at the scene in front of her. Another kind of shiver runs through her abdomen. No staged performance Willas has taken her to will ever compare to the raw show in front of her now.

For all his basking in the shadows, Petyr makes quite the showman in the ring. His opponent is the same weight and height it seems, but bulkier. Petyr’s muscle is distributed evenly while the other mostly holds it in his arms. His opponent’s legs look tiny in comparison, a May Pole comes to mind. But there’s no ribbons covering his legs, just hair and blood and bruises. His punches are probably more painful than Petyr’s…if he could only land any. She watches as Petyr ducks and dances around, his trademark grin barely diminished by the leather mouth guard.  The young spindly orphan boy he told her about is nowhere in this ring. The crowd seems to grow tired of his game and he can feel the turning against him. He lands two punches in his opponent’s gut that force the man down and back into his own corner.

Excess blood drips from the corner of Petyr’s mouth when he spits into a metal can held out by a big bald man. She winces at the sight but refuses to look away. There are worse things to watch than this. Gorier images that she’s witnessed before. A tall blonde man in a straw hat walks the room taking bets. She waves him over. The man looks astonished as he makes his way over. His eyes widen when Sansa holds out the bills from her purse.

“All on Littlefinger.” She pronounces proudly.

He eyes her skeptically. His voice is low, but of a higher register than she originally expected. “Miss, I don’t think you want to be doing that.”

“Since when does a betting man give advice on who to bet for?” She replies indignantly.

“When the betting _woman_ knows who Petyr Baelish is betting on.”

And it’s obvious then when she looks the man in the eye that she’s no man at all. Brienne’s steely blue eyes staring her down have a bit of amusement in them.

“Well…I’ll place it all on his opponent then.”

“Women aren’t allowed to bet,” Brienne says when she takes Sansa’s money and hands her a ticket. “I’ll make sure to take your winnings to Cat’s.”

“Sounds perfect.”

A bell dings and Brienne walks away to exit the room. Count up the money divvy it all up. The final round starts and there’s no more betting to be made. If Sansa had any qualms about hiding from Petyr she has none now.

He dances around for a bit, but either because it’s obvious that she knows he’s betting against himself or because he’s showing his hand more, she knows he’ll lose. He ducks and dips, but his opponent lands a punch anyway. His own don’t thud against the bulky man’s cheeks or chest and for one instant Petyr’s not quick enough. Sansa’s stomach twists as she watches him spin down to the ground. The heavy hit against his head leaves him unconscious as they declare his opponent the winner. Half the crowd boos in anger while the other cheers but he’s out like a flame and doesn’t hear either side.

“Cocky son of a bitch,” the man next to her mutters to himself as he falls into his seat. “Good to see him taken down for once.”

She hops down from her perch and he flinches at the abrupt movement. “Is this the first time he’s lost?” She asks him.

The man scratches his beard and eyes the neckline of her dress. She clears her throat and he looks up at her face after too long of a moment. “What’s a broad like you doing in a place like this? In a dress like that no less.”

Her eyes are level with his and her gaze doesn’t waver. “Asking you a question and expecting an answer. Is this the first time he’s lost?”

He scoffs and spits a wad of tobacco at her feet, the tar brown spatters on her silver heels. She rolls her eyes and wipes them against the sawdust floor. The man smirks at her annoyance. “Littlefinger’s slippery but he’s no god. He’s lost plenty of times before but he was on a winning streak recently. It was about time the piece of slime lost. A lot of wives are gonna be angry when their men come home without the grocery money.”  

Sansa smiles, lips too tight and eyes too dead to be polite, and makes her way out before the rest of the herd can stop cheering and fighting and stampede her on their way to the bars nearby. She steps out into the night, the summer air chilly in comparison to the stagnant humid air within the boxing room. Quieter as well. A car ambles by and honks. The exhaust wheezes down the road and the driver shouts a derogatory term at her. Ignoring it she continues to the side where she parked her bike. A breeze billows through the gauzy skirt of her dress and she regrets not bringing any trousers with her. If she plans on making another appearance here she’ll need a disguise. The kind of people who frequent matches like this aren’t the type to talk to a Tyrell. They’ll talk to the Tyrell help though. And that’s where the real trouble lies.

There aren’t too many finely dressed redheads in town who could be slumming it at an illegal boxing match.

Cat’s is busier than she expected. The side wall of the building is already wet with booze and urine and vomit so she sets her bike against the lemon tree in the back. Tonight’s not the night to talk to him about his clientele’s habits of how they get rid of liquids. Some other night she’ll broach the subject of who should be let in. Olyvar’s already made her a drink. She dismisses it. The metal rim of the bar is cool to the touch when she sets her hands down on it. Not sticky yet, at least this part of the bar remains clean for now. Her shoulders hunch when she leans towards him.

“What does he drink after he loses?”

The bass player is picking the deep low notes of the beginning of a song she likes, the brass joining in soon after. Normally she’d stay and listen. Wait for Petyr to appear and take her into his arms. Since discretion is the word painted just inside the foyer of the bar, no one will tell anyone else what goes on in his establishment. Although she knows tonight’s not a night for their public indecency in a private establishment. She takes the bottle of bourbon from Olyvar and makes her way through the back hallway, up the polished brown stairs to wait for him in his private apartment.

***

“I thought I caught a glimpse of red before I got knocked out.” He smiles weakly. His cheek is swollen and purple, lighter than the black eye he’s sporting, but still dark enough to look like he came off worse than the other guy. “You snuck in on a bad night sweetheart.”

“Snuck in? They didn’t even ask for a secret password.” She chuckles. “Judging by how much I bet _against_ you…I came on a very good night.” She pats the space next to her and hands him his first glass when he collapses on the bed. A pained sigh escapes his lips when he leans back against the dark headboard. Her hand immediately goes to his wet hair and gently combs through the dark mess.

“You bet against me? That hurts.” He takes a sip. A bit of blood trickles into the amber liquid.

“Well first I bet _on_ you. Then someone came along and said that’d be a bad investment.” She turns to the side table on her side of the bed and glances through the drawers. What she’s looking for can’t be found there. “How much did Petyr Baelish bet against Littlefinger?”

“Quite a lot actually. A triple digit sum that turned into four.” He sighs in pain again when she reaches across him. She immediately retracts her arm and gets up from the bed to walk around and open the bedside drawer. “Your money’s downstairs in the safe. What are you looking for?”

She stops her search to glare at him, “I don’t care about the money you asshole.” He grins as much as he can and she sees he’s missing a tooth which accounts for the amount of blood. It’s towards the back, barely visible, still a missing tooth. “I’m looking for cotton swabs and antiseptic…A first aid kit maybe? So I can take care of you.” She ends pointedly and then continues her search.

He points to the bathroom, “In the cabinet there are some cotton balls and an ice cloth in there. There’s ice in the tub too.  As for antiseptic,” he finishes his glass and moves to grab the bottle from her side to pour himself a more generous amount. “I’ve got that right here.”

 _Don’t let him drink the whole bottle. He’ll try_.

Olyvar’s words to her when he gave her the bottle of bourbon came with good reason it seems. She goes into the teal bathroom, catches her reflection in the mirror before she opens the cabinet to find a jar of cotton balls next to his razor set and cologne. She grabs the jar and the ice cloth then retreats back to the bedroom. With a quick movement she swipes the bourbon again and replaces it on her side without a glance in his direction.

“You’re a smart man. Who can’t seem to stop bleeding.” She straddles his legs, trying not to touch his torso, more than she needs to, in case he’s too sore. “Open up.”

He does so but takes another long sip before he lets her stick two cotton balls in the space where his tooth used to be. The first one begins to soak up the red immediately. The second stays white. The scent of bourbon is heady, coming from his breath and the glass between them. She craves her own drink.

“I like your teeth, don’t lose any more okay?” She sits beside him and takes a swig from the bottle. His free hand reaches for hers. Entwining the bruised, bloody knuckles with pristine, manicured ones.

“Losing’s just as profitable as winning. Sometimes more so. Brienne has your money in the safe.”

With a roll of her eyes at his insistence about her money she sets the alcohol down and brings his hand to her lips. “Later. Where do you want the ice?”

“My cheek is aching for it, but I need it on my stomach first. He got some good touches before you got there.” He pauses for a moment when she leaves the room to ready the ice pack. Takes a sip while he listens to her scoop ice out of the tub.

“Who brought the ice here?”

He waits to reply until she’s back on the bed. “I did. Before I left today. I had Brune’s help.”

“Brune? Is he your coach?” Her hand slips the pack under his shirt and she can briefly feel how hot his skin is.

“We use that word as loosely as possible but yes.” His eyes close and he places his hand on the pack. Holds it against himself to sooth the pain. The dark blue quilt beneath them shifts as he slides down a bit, a broken body tired of holding up.

“Why don’t you lay that bruised head of yours in my lap?”

“I don’t think my mouth is up to the challenge. Right now.” Even the smirk he reserves for statements like that causes a flinch. “Maybe in a few hours.”

She gently pinches his nose, and he cringes again. “Don’t be a tease. Come lay down. Who usually bandages you up when you lose nowadays?” She asks when he does as she commands.

Her fingers comb through his hair again, stray drops of water dripping into her lap. He closes his eyes and answers, “Myself.”

“Well that’s no good. I’m glad I’m here then. Who cares for you when you win?”

“No one,” he smiles.

“I’ll be there then as well,” she leans down to kiss his temple, one of the only spots where the skin isn’t discolored. “You’re impressive, even when you fake a loss. How are you so quick?”

He chuckles, “Lots of practice. A lot of dancing too.”

“Really? Dancing helps you with boxing?”

“Mhm. I’m not as strong as some of the others. I need quick feet,” he hums when she begins to massage his shoulders. “Oh that’s the spot. You’re killing me but I love it.”

Her fingers curl into the overstrained muscles and he lets out another involuntary groan. She smiles when a twinge, similar to the one she felt watching him fight, takes residence in her stomach, “You’re never this vocal. I love _that_.”

“I’ll remember that for the next time when I’m not battered and fucked up and we’ll need to celebrate.”

They leave each other to their own thoughts until the ice melts. The water seeps through the cloth and his shirt, dripping down onto the bed. She rises to switch it out with a dry cloth full of new ice to hold against his cheek. He looks as though he’s in enough pain that she asks a question she knows she shouldn’t. “Would you like another drink?”

But he shakes his head and curls as close to her touch as he can. She forgoes massaging his shoulders to stroke his hair again.

“Are you going home to your family tonight?”

“Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.”

Petyr likes the sound of that unsure maybe. “Thank you.”

Sansa knows that even though Winterfell calls to her, even though it’s the lie that she uses on Willas, she won’t go home again. The cold ice brushes against her cheek when she leans down to kiss Petyr’s temple again.  

***

When she leaves his home the next morning she waits until she’s back in her own to replace the ring on her finger. No one asks her about it. No one is there to ask about it. She doesn’t see any of her family. It’s already as if they don’t truly exist in her world anymore. After a moment of sitting alone on the porch she feels an overpowering urge to create something.

An old forgotten sketchbook tucked away in a floorboard is her aim. The lonely portion of the river that winds through the woods is her location. She’s drawn it a million times. A million different ways. There’s always something different to see. The pages she flips past include pine trees, bushes, moths clustered around the sparkling lantern that marks her spot, a girl with Petyr’s hair and her eyes…She stays on that one for a moment. Soaks in the penciled hair before she rips it out, crumples it up, and tosses it in the water. It drifts in the water before the clear liquid forces it to disintegrate.

The pine leaves crunch underneath her, stick to her dress as she sits in the dirt. It’s the only sound in the still woods. No wind breathes through the branches. A quiet babbling begins when she listens to the water. The white bubbles that foam up near the bank are her current muse. Bubbles so frothy and light that they should be able to continue on, dissipate in the rushing water, become a different consistency, but they’re stuck. Stuck in the brambles and the mud, content to sway back and forth never disconnecting. Broken branches on the ground crack beneath heavy, quick footsteps.

“Oh, there’s a person here!” A voice behind her says.

Her senses heighten when she sees two women and a child making their way towards the water. Their eyes wide in fright.

“She’s not a person,” the child yells. A shrill voice that reeks of spoiled behavior. “She’s one of them.”

Sansa smiles sweetly, “Well there’s only one way to find out isn’t there?”

“Cease all motor functions!” The little girl yells.

Sansa smiles again and continues drawing the bubbles. Without looking at the family she says, “You’ve come pretty deep into the woods. Usually, children don’t come on this track. There’s more dangerous situations here.”

“We got lost. Our host went AWOL and started acting cognizant. We're just trying to make it back to Winterfell to speak with whoever’s in charge.”

Her ears perk up at that, she sets her sketchbook aside, “What did the host do?”

“It started quoting from some 90's movie. Going on some long speech that started with ‘Choose life. Choose a job. Kept on going until it ended with choose rotting away at the end of it all nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish- Cecilia cover your ears- f-u-c-k-e-d up brats.”

“Then that thing tried to hit me!” The girl yells.

 _I would too._ “How strange. I’m so sorry that happened to you.” People love to talk about themselves and Sansa listens. This is one story she actually _needs to listen to_ so she can pass the information on. “What was going on before it happened?”

“We were letting Cecilia take out some of her stress. Gave her a gun to shoot cans and she wanted to shoot some real things instead.” The woman’s fear dissipates as she smiles proudly, “She’s on a Harvard track in the real world. Instead of pills we pay for her to come here every Sunday.”

Sansa’s grin tightens when the constant dead feeling inside of her stomach worsens. “Wow you’ve got some great parents don’t you Cecilia?” She doesn’t wait for the child to speak again. “Just follow the river this way. If you’ve gotten to the edge of the forest you’ve gone too far. You’ll find the building where you began to your left. I’m sure the Lannisters will be able to accommodate any of your needs.”

The two women seem skeptical even though their darling daughter starts running along the river in the direction Sansa pointed. “Do you work here? Or are you a guest?”

They should have asked this question before. When they stumbled upon her and realized she wasn’t another host for them to let their aggression out on. They should have shown worry before this moment. 

“Just a guest looking for some peace from reality.” She stands and brushes the bramble and bark from her dress. “Would you like me to lead you there?”  

***

Petyr doesn’t see the ring until a week later. It’s the second time she watches him fight. He wins. Elation lights up his features and he sees her in the back with her hair tucked underneath a cap, decked in his clothes. He’s already imagining the moment he leaves the gym and gets her all to himself. But then there’s a sparkling, glittery stone on her left hand and he feels like he got knocked out again.

She waits in the makeshift locker room. He looks past the enticing men’s shirt that’s too big and goes too low for a man. Pale, smooth skin, smattered in tiny constellations of freckles shows. He only has eyes for her hand.  

“Why are you doing this? This wasn’t part of the original plot.”

“Something’s going on with the hosts. They're using modern pop culture references and fighting guests.”

“And marrying him is going to help you find out the problem?” He scoffs. “Cersei’s in charge she’ll fix it.”

“No, I think she’s behind it.”

He eyes her after her blatant accusation. Ears and eyes listen and watch at all times. Even their story. “What did you do to sidetrack them?”

“Currently Cersei and Lancel are busy with a PR nightmare. Two guests and their daughter were found drowned in the river. The host that was guiding them was becoming Aware. Didn’t appreciate the way the daughter was using him for target practice. It’s really quite a shame the way they were treating him. He was one of the originals.”

His blood boils. The image that he and Cat had for the park was a strictly pleasant one. A perfect world with no violence where people could pay to live a life they wanted. Use the technology they created for pleasure at the most. Sansa having to dirty her hands with murder is at the bottom of his list of reasons to be angry.

“I’ll deal with her. I’ll deal with the virus. Keep Willas busy. We don’t want the Tyrells being affected by this. ”

***

Winterfell is bright and white. There’s a sterile quality to the overabundance of minimalism. He sits in a chair waiting to speak to the acting CEO. There’s no sound except for the gentle buzz of the LEDs above him. He taps his foot. The echo sounds larger than naturally possible.

“Petyr,” Cersei smiles when she walks in the door and sits behind the massive, empty desk. “Welcome in. It’s great to see you. I hear you have plenty of communication with Lancel but I never get a simple ‘thinking of you’ email?”  

“What are you allowing the guests to do with the hosts?” There’s no pretense to this conversation. She knows what she’s done wrong.

“What they pay to come here for. Speaking of,” her dark lips tighten with how wide she’s smiling, “how’s Sansa? Accounting just forwarded her latest check to the company. Have she and Mr. Tyrell truly hit it off? Or are you both extending?”

Cersei’s smile is overcompensating for both of them as he keeps a flat, unemotionally blank expression. “Unless you keep allowing 12 year olds to shoot my creations.”

“They’re fine. They’re artificial.” She shrugs. “Your new update just hasn’t gone into effect. It’ll be fine.”

He stands, buttons the black jacket of his suit and walks out the door. “I’m staying until it does.”

Cersei’s smile drops when she follows him to his own office.

***

She’s been spending the night at Cat’s while he’s away. He can tell by the objects in his room that have been moved. A half bottle of bourbon is on his nightstand instead of hers. She’s curled into the sheets on his side of the bed when he walks in the room. He takes his suit off. Slides back into his costume. Slips back into the time period. Back into his role. There’s been too much wasted time because of his inability to create and play at the same time.

“Sansa,” he murmurs when he joins her on the bed. “Wake up.”

“You’re back,” she sighs. The bourbon on her breath assaults his face when she reaches for him.

He coughs, “You’re drunk.”

“No, I’m not. It was just a few glasses to help me sleep.” When she’s tucked under his arm, his fingers playing with her messy hair, she speaks again. “How were things? Everything back to normal?”

“As normal as they can be. All that matters is that we shouldn’t have any more interruptions.”

“Good.”

“This engagement though…”

“It’s all a part of the game.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Well that’s a shame.” Her teeth graze his jawline. The liquor's still more dominant than the new citrusy scent she’s taken to wearing in his absence.   

“Sansa...”

“Tell me another story Petyr. Tell me about the creation of your perfect world.”

***

“Where do you go at night?”

“What do you mean?” The rose in her hand is dangerously close to being crushed. It was dethorned before Sansa and Margaery even started the process of making flower crowns for the bridesmaids and brides; their joint wedding nuptials so soon, just a few weeks away.

“Ever since you moved in…You leave in the middle of the night, I guess. Don’t say you’re asleep because the minute Willas told me, I stayed up one night. I heard you leave in the middle of the night and I heard him knock at your door, for ten minutes. You have to hand it to him, he doesn’t give up easily.” Margaery’s smile is pained when she speaks about her older brother. But the soft expression of love on her face hardens when she continues. “Then, I heard _you_ come back around 6:30 in the morning. How often does that happen?”

There was one unnoticed thorn. Sansa’s hand slips. The blood just as red as the rose she drops once it pricks her. She swears and picks it up. The petals wilting in her hand. “I can’t sleep sometimes. I ride my bike at night. No one’s awake.” The blood stains her blouse, so she untucks it from her trousers and pressed her finger to the hem of it. The blood barely staunches, but it doesn’t stream.

“ _Tell_ Willas that. He thinks you’re off with some-” Margaery reaches for her future sister’s hand and wraps a piece of wedding ribbon around her finger. It does more than her shirt. Margaery takes a breath and looks her in the eye. “You’re not lying, right? You wouldn’t lie to me.”

“Never.” She lies.

“Then tell him you can’t sleep. Let him know the truth. He needs that. He needs you.”

Sansa gently takes her hand away from Margaery’s. “If I do that he’ll want to come with me. He’ll think it’s something he can fix. He can’t.” With her bandaged finger she commences weaving the other flowers through the other crowns. Leaves her own for last. The roses are piled next to her crossed legs in the grass.

The sun is high and beats down mercilessly. But neither girl sweats. There’s enough shade where they are, under the smallest willow tree on the grounds. Sansa’s legs are still pink from where her short trousers don’t cover. Whether from the heat of the sunburn or the blades of green slicing minuscule cuts into her skin, she’s irritated.

Margaery finishes her own bridal crown that will hold her pure white veil. “You should tell him Sansa.”

“Are you going to?”

Margaery grabs Sansa’s unfinished rose crown from the grass, “Do you want roses in yours or would you prefer a different flower?”

“Willas wants roses. I want roses.”

“I think something darker would be better.” Her tongue darts out to lick her lips. “Something that isn’t red will look good against your hair. Like a violet. Or even lavender. Or _cat_ mint.” She looks up at Sansa’s eyes. Let’s her know what she knows. Her studies in human nature leading her to the right conclusion. “You’re so pink. Why don’t you go inside and I’ll finish yours. I think Willas is in the library.”

***

A moment is all Sansa has to herself. When she walks in the house- the mansion truly, a manor grander than Winterfell even- she’s greeted by servants and attendants and extended cousins and family members that seem to come out of every doorway she passes on her way to the library. The giant beech doors are closed. The ring sparkles on her hand when she places it on the wood, the small inner ruby and diamond circle makes her laugh. Her immediate family may be large, but it doesn’t a hold a candle to the entire Tyrell family that has taken residence in their home. Her hand looks so pale and small in comparison to the darkness of the doors she pushes open.

Willas has his back to the door and doesn’t turn at her entrance. She watches him climb one of the many slender ladders, pulling books out, stroking the spine gently before he opens them one by one, searching for those few sentences that will help him with whatever quest he’s currently on. His hair is a curly mess, the strawberry blonde strands less blonde, redder in the sunlight streaming from the windows on the right side of the room. Margaery’s curls are always pristine, the same for her twin Loras. Both are tame compared to the wild nest that’s perpetually atop their older brother’s head. She clears her throat as gently as the harsh sound can come off and he turns towards her. A bright smile takes over his face. Teeth white and shiny and perfect like they always are.

“Sansa,” he says but his smile dims and he climbs down from the ladder with three of the five books he chose in his hand. The other two replaced to be used another time. Instead of walking towards her to greet her with some kind of friendly touch he goes back to his desk by the window that overlooks the garden. He sets the books down and sits, letting the desk be his wall between them. “I feel like it’s been ages since I’ve seen you.”

“Bridal duties seem to take more time than the groom’s,” she teases as she walks across to sit down on the bench beside him. With a kiss on his cheek and snuggle against his arm, she leans in to look at the closest open book. The sun through a window instead of directly on her, the smell of the books, the clean fragrance and feeling of his cotton sleeves…they all comfort her strangely. “What are you reading today?”

“The history of the Italian sonnet and the English sonnet and the differences they share.” He glances down at the hands wrapped around his arm. “What happened to your finger?”

“Just a small scratch from a flower. You’ve moved back to the basic poetry?”

“I needed to brush up before the presentation. For the life of me, I kept forgetting Petrarch’s name and the differences in rhyme scheme which was incredibly worrisome. It keeps my mind off of other-” He breaks off and goes back to the page for a moment. Distracts himself from whatever awful thought has entered his mind. Sansa brushes her fingers against his arm.

“Will,” she started softly. “You’re going to be great. You’re going to wow them. I’ve read your paper over and over. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to keep my mind off of.”

“Is this about when you come to my room when I’m not there?”

His cheeks turn as red as her hair and he turns as if to look out the window. Then she realizes that perhaps he hasn’t been in the library studying _books_ this entire time. She moves her hand up to his curls and his eyes close. The ability to make a man weak with one small gesture…she’s grown apt at it. His blush doesn’t fade even though he moves closer to her. Hides his face in her shoulder. The heat of his skin adds to her already over-heated state from being outside. She won’t push him away though. He shakes his head back and forth on the soft fabric covering her shoulder.

“Where are you? Do you go back to that bar at night?” He mumbles against the pink. “Cat’s?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I just ride my bike around. It’s quieter at night.”

“Why do you go back there?”

“I like it, Will. No one hides anything there.”

“I don’t hide anything from you.”

Her lips press against his soft hair, the kinks tickling her nose. “You’re hiding your face from me right now.”

He waits until she moves away before looking up at her. “You know I don’t like confrontation.”

“This isn’t a confrontation. We’re having a conversation. A discussion. Much like the one you’ll be having in a couple of weeks. Keep your mind on that. Don’t worry about me.”

For once he pulls away completely to close the book. Completely out of Sansa’s arms he drags a finger along the spine, splays his hand against the dark green cover with the gold stars on the cover. He traces the lines of the thread. She waits for him to gather his thoughts and strength.

“Why do you really go there? Is it because of Littlefinger?”

“Partially.” She wants to hold him, to kiss him, to tell him again not to worry. “He knew my mother. He tells me stories when I visit.”

His knuckles bend, fingertips tap the book as though it’s no longer a book but the white and black keys of a piano instead. “Cat’s. He named it after her.”

Sansa nods. “They were partners. He loved her but she chose another. Then she married my father.” _They both died and I slept with my mother’s former lover. Again. And again. And again. And I don’t see an end in sight to that little affair._ “He keeps her memory alive for me.”

“Partners…in what? The bar?”

She shakes her head and lies. “No not that. I’m not entirely sure actually. He hasn’t told me everything. Something to do with inventions from what I’ve gathered. He has a bunch of tools and trinkets in his home.”

“His home?” Willas’s eyes are wide. “You’ve been to his house?”

“It’s a part of the bar,” she counters with a dismissive tone. “I can only take so much unabashed freedom in one night so sometimes we talk in his-” She feels herself losing his support so she resorts to another weapon in her arsenal. Words won’t work but tears always do.

“Darling.” It’s the first time he’s ever called her something other than her name since the night they met. He scoots closer to her again, wipes away the clear droplets falling swiftly from her eyes. “Darling I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’ve doubted you.”

“He’s just…he’s the only person who knows the truth about my family. Knows _anything_ about my family.” She sniffs and kisses the palm of his hand. “I didn’t tell you though. That’s good enough reason to doubt. I’m sorry.”

It’s easy to play the doting, apologetic fiancé with him. He’s just too kind. Too sweet. Too naïve. But she still loves him.

And for once he chooses to comfort her, holds his hand out with a choice. She takes it. Honors the duty of her image. He fumbles with his hands when he pulls her closer than she already is. Holds his arm around her awkwardly as there’s no smooth quality to his affections but she doesn’t mind. He’s honest and straightforward. His kisses have no hidden meanings when he places them on her head, on her cheek, before moving to her lips. She smiles when his hands wander, still fumbling since they’re more adept at page-turning and pen-scribbling.

“Willas,” she murmurs against his cheek. “Why have you been coming to my room in the middle of the night?” Her hands bring a visible shiver down his torso when she trails them down his sides, lingering at the bottom of his shirt where his suspenders hook on his trousers. A tiny tail of the shirt untucked already at his hip.

“I wanted to talk. We rarely get moments like,” he gulps when her hands continue to his thighs, “this. Alone. I figure at night we can have some more alone time to-”

“Talk?” She finishes for him. A glance from under her eyelashes makes him weak. “I’ll stay in my room tonight.”

“Will you really?” His astonishment overpowers whatever embarrassment he’s feeling.

“Mhm. I want to _talk_ too.”

There’s always been a slight tension in the air since the Tyrells asked her to move in. They had more than enough rooms. There would be so much wedding planning and she and Margaery needn’t worry about running across town to meet up with each other when she could easily stay there. It’d be the proper polite thing to do.

But there’s the _improper_ tension amongst the young ones of the house. The _expectation_ of sneaking around before the wedding night. It would be unseemly if anyone found out of course, but it’s the _expectation_ of two people in love. And they are in love of course. He dips his head. Her agreement spurs his confidence, encourages him to press his lips against hers again, helps him along. The door creaks open and they break apart. He opens the book up so quickly a page rips. The ancient paper flimsy and helpless against his energy.

“Shit,” he murmurs as Margaery and Loras waltz in. Sansa laughs and tucks her feet under her on the bench.

“Mmm and what exactly are you two doing _alone_ in the library?” Loras drawls.

“Reading,” Sansa replies clearly. She places her hand on Willas’s on the table. Intertwines their fingers. “As people are want to do in libraries.”

“You two seem awfully close to be reading. Indecently close as our grandmother would say. And Sansa!” Loras gasps. “Wearing trousers with your feet on the furniture? Diminishing the value of that wooden workbench passed down through three generations.”

“It’s very tiny print,” Sansa continues. Undeterred. The lies are quick and easy. “I don’t have the same strong eyes that Willas has. I have to be extremely close and it’s so uncomfortable sitting with your feet on the floor at all times.”

“Is that so?” Margaery joins in. She’s changed since their garden flower time. Instead of the yellow, cotton, button-up dress, she was wearing before, she wears a sea-foam green silk dress. Already ready for the large, formal family dinners that have been taking place so regularly now. She walks along the opposite wall, skimming her hand mindlessly along the books with her eyes trained on the two of them. “Will you two be joining us tonight? Or will you be too busy _reading_?”

“Of course,” Willas answers. “We’re always at dinner. What do you two really need?”

“We’re planning a bit of a party for after the stuffy old family dinner. Not tonight, although it seems _something_ is happening tonight,” Loras smiles. “But no, this will be in a couple of weeks. It’ll be after the _grandiose_ stuffy old family dinner when _all_ of the relatives are here. Baratheon included.”

“The night before the wedding?”  Sansa asks incredulously. Willas tightens his hold on her hand.

“It’ll be the perfect way to blow off steam. Trust me Sansa; you’re going to want to. Our family is awful.”

“It can even be a joint bachelor-bachelorette party,” Margery adds and sits next to Sansa. She drapes her arms around her and rests her head on her shoulder. “Tommen’s immediate family has already agreed.”

“I’ve heard about how wild his siblings can be too. And I’ve already spoken to the owner of the venue.”

“Where’s the venue?” Willas asks. Loras walks behind them to open the window. “Loras don’t smoke in here, please.”

Loras strikes a match smoothly and lights his hand rolled joint anyway. “The outskirts of town of course. So no old granny or grampy will hear the ensuing party.” He blows a ring out the window and watches it get carried away in the wind. “At that one bar that isn’t as gross as the others. Just _sinful_ with all that jazz and such.”

“Loras is sleeping with a bartender there,” Margaery mock whispers into Sansa’s ear and laughs. “It helps.”

“The owner’s letting us do it for free. Says the revenue of a private party as large as ours will be worth it,” he holds the joint out to Margaery and she reaches over to take it.

The strong scent that Sansa smells at Petyr’s, or on the railroad tracks when a skunk has been hit, hits her, even more, when Margaery puts her lips around it. Her perfect ring of smoke takes longer to dissipate with no breeze to help it. Willas sighs audibly at his siblings but doesn’t chide them openly. Sansa kisses his cheek and rubs his arm.

Loras gags at the gesture. “Just try it and ease up a little Willas.”

“Not in the library. You’re going to ruin the books with that awful odor.” His shoulders tense up. “Did you tell the owner who the party was for?”

“Of course. Our name carries weight. Why wouldn’t I use it?”

“Did you use Sansa’s as well?”

“She is your fiancée,” his brother rolls his eyes and gestures for Margaery to pass the weed back to him. “What is this interrogation about?”

“You got the bar for free because of his infatuation with Sansa. Not your boyfriend.”

Sansa tries to catch his eye with a squeeze to his foreman, but the doubt is still too fresh. A dejected countenance takes over him again. “He’s a family…friend for lack of better word. He’s not infatuated darling.”

“Willas don’t get jealous. He’s giving us a free fucking venue. This way we don’t have to figure out some lie to get money from mother and father.”

Margaery chooses a more tactful route. She’s still draped around Sansa so she reaches around her to brush her hand against his shoulder. Bringing him closer to both women while almost smothering Sansa between them. “We don’t have to have it there though, if it makes either of you uncomfortable.” She eyes Sansa and almost imperceptibly raises her eyebrows. “It’s just another bar. There are plenty of those in that area.”

If she didn’t doubt how much Margaery trusted her at the moment she’d say they could make a good team. “It’s true. It’s not as though we have a specific connection to that place.” She leans closer to her fiancé. Touches his thigh with her toes. “No stories there.”

The smile on his face fights to be there but Sansa knows he’s thinking of their first meeting. The one he’s tried too hard to act ignorant of. She knows she’s won. It’s just too easy with him. “I’ll think about it. I just don’t trust that man.”

“Trust me then.” She kisses his head. “Let’s think of some other places in the meantime. A party of our own making does sound very nice.”

“Well I’m having a party there that night. So you’re free to join or you’re free to do whatever it is you’re trying to do right now with Marg and me in the room.” He stubs out the smoldering end of the joint and tucks it behind his ear. “I’ll need more than this little bit to get through tonight’s dinner. Grandmother is on a roll today with trying to get me to marry Tommen’s sister, so I’ll be in the garage if you decide you need some too.” He jumps down from his perch on the window sill and holds his hand out to Margaery. “Joining me? Or are you feeling voyeuristic today?”

Margaery lets him help her stand. She kisses Sansa’s head then Willas’s before he can duck away. Then walks with Loras towards the door. “Don’t make me send grandmother in here to separate you two. Seven o’clock sharp.”

They close the door behind them and the couple is alone again. He stands with book in hand. The sunlight is still overly bright, streaming in, but time has passed. The bright yellow light turning orange slowly, but surely, as the sun makes its descent in the sky. Sansa picks up a pencil and begins sketching on one of his scraps of paper. She glances at Willas while he climbs the ladder again to replace the book to its rightful position. He strays, searching for more.

First she starts with his hair. She can’t get enough of it and enjoys committing it to paper; even though she never does it true justice. Then she moves onto his body. The lead curves and twists in some areas, but remains mostly straight. One day she fears he’ll break his neck reaching as high as he does. Lose his balance and then what?

“How many of those books have you read?” She calls over to him as he pushes the ladder onto the next row of shelves. 

“Not nearly enough,” he tilts his head back with a smile. “Do you want to go for a ride?”

“ _You’re_ suggesting a bike ride? He who prefers to exercise by lifting heavy hundred-year-old tomes and walking back and forth this grand room?”

“You enjoy riding.” He grabs a book and makes his way back down. “And I want to try things you enjoy. Enjoy things you enjoy. With you. Besides, you won’t get your late night ride tonight.”

She waits to reply until he sets the book down on the desk with the others and sees her sketch of him before he grabs another book to replace. Her hands cover the papers when she leans across, “I was under the impression I would.” Her eyes spark with her smirk. “But I suppose a bike ride would do us both good.”

His cheeks are still aflame when she kisses one. He clears his throat, “I’ll meet you in the garage. That way my parents won’t see us leaving.”

“The garage?” Loras’s offering still fresh. “Any other things you don’t want your parents seeing in mind?”

“Just meet me there,” he laughs.

“Sounds great. I’ll go change shirts.” She steps away to head towards the door but he speaks up.

“Wait, Sansa.” He holds the book tightly at his side. Breathes out of his nose before he speaks, “I really don’t need to worry about Petyr?”

Her face is as innocent as can be. “No, you don’t.”

Because he doesn’t. As Petyr doesn’t need to worry about him. There’s no need to worry as there has never been any competition. Because she is not a prize for either of them to win.

***

The lights shine on the two men onstage. Both slender and fit and imported from another place that isn’t this dilapidated hamlet. A silk ropes act that’s foreign as well. Mostly consisting of the two up in a lusty embrace before swinging away to perform their own tricks. Always coming back to one another though and that’s when the crowd’s attention is really on them. Petyr takes another sip of his drink. Then he takes another. And another.

She’s never been late before. He’s the one who’s late. Too busy watching her from above or from behind. She’s never delayed before. Always on time. Their argument is still on his mind and obviously hers too as she’s not there. A fresh gaping wound that she isn’t going to come and mend.

Yet, her party, _their_ party, would be held at his fine establishment in just a matter of weeks. He finishes the drink off with that thought. A couple who’s been eying him since he sat down at the bar makes their move. The woman easing him in, to coax him into the idea, as if he’d be adverse to a man in the embrace as well. It will be the first morning in a while that he hasn’t woken up in his own bed to an early goodbye kiss from Sansa. He already tastes the morning regret as the couple leads him away from Cat’s.

***

There’s a knock at her door. She wants to make him wait for a moment. Brush her hair a hundred times or whatever ridiculous number is expected of her. But doubt will only make him more worried. Will only make this harder. Will make him less malleable. So she doesn’t even don her robe when she opens the door and pulls him in. His wide-eyed gaze is all she needs to know she made the right choice.

***

“Finally. Send my regards to Jamie for that.”

“That wasn’t Jamie. He doesn’t have clearance anymore.”

“Who revoked it?”

“Cersei I don’t think I should be the one-”

“If that _rat_ gives you an order again, dismiss it. It’s not _their_ story anymore. It’s mine.”


	4. Act IV

It’s the first morning in two years, three months, one week, and three days that she’s woken up in a bed that’s supposed to be hers. Arms wrapped around her are a normal occurrence but the hold on her waist is too tight; more constricting than the usual pair. Willas’s grip, even in sleep, is suffocating. Like he knows he’ll lose her if he loosens for too long. She pets his arm, tries to wake him up softly and sweetly, but he’s deep asleep.

Her room is warm for once. There’s not a bad room in the Tyrell Manor but there are rooms that are colder than others. The sun doesn’t stream through her windows in the morning. She’s on the east side of the hall. She appreciates the chill. She can always find a way to warm up quickly. It’s harder to cool down. She prefers that. She’s sweltering with Willas all around her.

“Willas, darling,” she speaks up before attempting to twist in his arms. “Wake up. You need to go back to your room.”

He lets out a sleepy mumble, “No just stay here.”

With a laugh she succeeds in turning to face him. Evidence of their short time in the sun yesterday is present. His newly acquired freckles are joined by little dots of sleep in the corners of his eyes. Her chest touching his, skin to skin, seems to wake him up a little more. He nuzzles into her neck, curls tickling her face.

“How will you ever leave our bed when we’re married?”

“I won’t. I’ll conduct classes from our bedroom.”

“I don’t think those are the kind of classes the board expects you to teach with your degree. I don’t like the sound of sharing you. I would want you all to myself.” And if that ironic statement brings another man to her mind, phrases almost exactly as he said them, she dashes him away quickly. For the moment. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired, but very, very,” he kisses her neck, makes his way across her collarbone before he finishes, “ _satiated._ ”

“Do they use that word often in your historical literature?”

“Not openly. They use desire and burning and suffering. They’re written by lustful men and dusty old men who want to have lots of sex but hold back because of religion and rejection from women.”

“You’re a changed man Willas,” she laughs. “First marijuana then sex what’s next?”

“Rock ‘n roll.”

Her eyes blink in shock at the out of other worldly phrase. “What?”

He closes his eyes and when he opens them again his they’re brighter. Clear of the sleepy look. “Sorry I think I’m still a little punch drunk. Only one of us got the full experience last night.”

She’s worried that something’s wrong. Something that shouldn’t be happening. Then he’s blushing again; cheeks as red as the roses outside. It’s just a bug, a moth to be brushed away. His blush seems to permanently affix itself to his cheeks. A perpetual sunburn of deep-seeded, pre-programed shame.

“Last night was about you,” she says. But something in her mind fights back. _Why should it be?_ Because she wants it to be.

“I want it to be about both of us when we-” he ducks his head. So childlike but so eager to learn. “I want you to enjoy yourself.”

If she was worried about his attitude the out of character comment- the worry is gone now. He’s back to his normal self. “Did you enjoy yourself?” She pets his hair, fingers following the natural direction of his curls. “Hmm?” She goads.

“Yes, very much.” He kisses her neck again, hand making its way towards her stomach. Circling her belly button and going lower. “But I want you to get the _same_ enjoyment.”

She stops his hand. Entwines fingers one by one with hers. “Another time. We both have things to do and places to be today.”

“When do you go back to Winterfell?”

“Tomorrow evening.”

“Why not the next day?”

“Don’t be petulant darling,” she chides like a mother. “I’ll be back sooner than you’ll realize. I need to spend _some_ time with my family before I’m officially a Tyrell.” _And never see them again._ “You have to get your head back into your studies.”

“One more kiss,” he moves above her. Hands on either side of her head, digging down into the pillow, legs between her knees. He kisses her forehead. “Or two.” He kisses her nose. “Or three or four.” He continues, much to her amusement until he’s as low as her belly button and her breathing is labored. It’s not him she’s imagining with her eyes closed so it’s a moment before she can force the correct name out.

“Willas…I need to pack. And it will be very suspicious if we’re both missing at breakfast.”

“I’ve read more than boring literature by prudish men.” He’s a different man now. A switch has been flipped. A level of sexuality adjusted. Heightened. All it took was one night to bring out the breathy voice he uses. “There are others, besides the lusty ones too, that detail experiences you might enjoy.”

“Willas, in a few weeks we can try out everything you’ve read in those books but not right now.” She laughs and makes him look up at her. “Who did you become overnight?”

“I became yours,” he murmurs against her stomach with a kiss. “When you come back you’re mine.”

“I _am_ yours,” she replies with a caress of his face.

****

“Have you seen him today?” She asks when she returns to the bar. “He never answered my phone calls. Or returned them.”

Olyvar shrugs. “He’s been out the past few nights. I can take another message to him.”

Sansa looks at the two-way mirror behind the bar. Tries to pinpoint where he’s standing behind it in that dim hallway that leads to the other rooms in the building. Then she walks away.

****

She feels him before she sees him. As always.

“You’re done sulking?”

“I don’t share. I’ve told you this.”

“Only when it’s a threesome right? Only when it adheres to your rules.”

“You have no right to be jealous.”

“I’m not jealous. I’m infuriated you’re going to be all high and mighty about _sharing_ and then go and fuck another couple. Without me.”

“Sounds a bit like jealousy. I’m sure you could get Willas on board with how you’ve got him wrapped around your finger.”

And he’s leaving her. Leading her to the hallway that takes them away from prying eyes and listening ears. Then it’s just them. Just him who hears her groan, “Stop being an _idiot_.”

“I am. You’re free to have your party here but after that I never want to see you again.”

“You don’t mean that.”

She draws closer to him. Walks lazily as she waits for his reply. She pouts.

“I _do_.”

“You never want to see me again?”

“Never.”

“You never want to feel me again?”

“Never.” But his back’s against the wall and he’s not making any moves to push her away.

“You never want to hear the sounds that _you_ elicit?”

He doesn’t reply immediately, too distracted by Sansa dropping on her knees before him. “No.”

“No or never?” The pout turns into a smirk that grows more pronounced as she unbuttons his vest with her hands raised above her. “Those are two different answers. Never as in, you _don’t_ want to hear those sounds. Or,” she lowers his pants and rubs her hand against him with a sound akin to a purr, “no, you _want_ to hear them?”

He falls back against the wall, his legs barely supporting him. “Sansa, I won’t-”

“Won’t what?” She asks when she pulls his underwear down, runs her thumb along his tip. “Won’t lie to me? Won’t say never?”

“Don’t stop,” he breathes.

“Do you want me to go away forever? Do you want me to leave and never look back?”

He stretches his neck, his head bumping against the wall. “No. Don’t. Please.”

She pushes one hand against his thigh, holds him against the wall, nails dig into his skin. He hisses and lets her trade touches. Tongue replaces thumb. It’s a moment before he snaps.

“I’m not your little child fiancé,” he groans before he pulls her from her knees. “I won’t settle for being sucked off.”

“I never expected you would,” she states matter-of-factly. “What do you want _now_?”

“I want you to be mine.” He holds her face to his. Gives her a long open-mouthed kiss. Hands clamping down on the curls she spent so long working to achieve, flattening them in just a few movements. “Just mine.”

“I am yours,” she breathes when she gets the chance. “I’m always yours. How else can you claim me that matters to you?”

 _That matters_? He pulls her by the arm down the hallway she knows so well now. His pants and vest are forgotten on the floor behind them and she almost chuckles at the pair they make. She starts unbuttoning her dress with one hand to make it quicker once they’re inside. A few days are still a few days too long away from him. The door to his room is already open and he locks it behind them. A fire burns low and he tosses another log onto the pile, by chance it doesn’t smother the fire within and a flicker of flame slowly starts eating away at the wood. Sparks fly before he can put the grate in front again but none catch on anything.

By the time he’s done sorting it out she’s already taken off her dress, her stockings, slipped under the sheets and waiting for him in the chilly room. It’s so routine. He stares at her for a moment.

“Why didn’t you at least call the night you didn’t come?”

“I won’t always be able to call.”

She’s already planning. Already set on making him the other man for…who knows how long. He’s so willing. He fights like he isn’t but he knows that he is. He’s willing to stay in the dark, welcome her to the shadows when she can get away. He sees her coming back from her honeymoon into his bed. There’s nothing to stop them from doing this forever. She’ll never be with child. Either way. With Willas or himself. He’ll never see her blooming with a growing child inside of her. He wishes he could but it’s just a matter that would complicate things further. Just as Alayne did.

“Petyr, love, please. Tell me what you need that I can give you.”

The bed beckons him with her in it. Last night’s romp and the one from the night before already behind them. She pulls him to her immediately. Peppers him with kisses. Lavishes him. Bites leave harsh purple bruises scattered across his body that he’d normally hate.

“What do you want from me?” He asks when she’s done with his mouth for the moment.

“Your dark wit, your intelligence, your humor, your good looks, your skills in bed, in the ring, your mystery, your acceptance of me and who I am,” and it would end there –this monologue she’s memorized- but she smiles. Adding, “And did I mention your good looks?”

Her list is rattled off with a soothing touch of some sort between each flattery. She kisses every scar he has and every bruise she’s made, but no amount of her compliments, true or false, can mend his ego. She feels it, feels his wariness, his inability to return the favor and fuck her thoroughly. So she takes initiative again.

On top of him she sees every bit of pain in his eyes, feels every bit of emotion he doesn’t even try to hide, but she sets it aside. Her hands hold his face to hers again, trail down to lead his hands along her skin, giving him hints that he just won’t take. When he stops reciprocating her kisses she sighs. She lays against him while his eyes remain on the fire in front of them before he pulls the covers over both of them. She’s still more clothed than she’d like but she waits for him to start the conversation he’s aching to have.

“The plan wasn’t engagement.”

“I took some liberties with the narrative.”

“I won’t be able to see you as often as I should and I don’t like that. Especially with the latest Winterfell issues.”

He skims his hand along her thigh. She rests her head on his chest.

“We’re in charge of our narrative. Our story. It’s you and I. Being married to him only makes it better.”

“Does it?” His nails press into her skin. “I don’t agree.”

“It’s more illicit. Sensuous. We have to make the moments matter when we meet.”

“Stop. We said if either of us got uncomfortable we’d reassess. Don’t be selfish.”

  _I wasn’t last time_ he wants to add. _I did what you wanted._

“Petyr,” she purrs. “Don’t worry. This isn’t like last time. Why don’t you walk me down the aisle?”

****

“Some guests are reporting some disturbances.”

“What kind?”

“Some of the entertainment is still fighting back.”

“Old or new?”

“Both.”

“Fuck me.”

“Baelish said we were to call him the second anything went wrong.”

“Roll them back. Give the guests who _suffered_ a free week and then hire some new techies. _Don’t_ call him. And don’t bother me with this shit again until after this wedding happens.”

****

They have the party at Cat’s. There was never any doubt about her ability to coerce Willas into thinking it was a great idea. There are tricks up Sansa’s sleeve when the crowd starts rolling in. What she has under her indecently short, sparkling, white dress is one. What she and Margaery and the bridesmaids have rehearsed in private is another. What she’s whispering into the band members’ ears combines the two.

Willas and Tommen and Loras and the rest of the boys have already started a game involving shots. Petyr’s servers attending only them for the moment. The girls have all separated from the boys with their dainty drinks in their delicate hands. All sneaking backstage to get dressed…or undressed. Sansa uses it as an excuse to steal away to the apartment where Petyr retreated off to after he greeted them all and left them to their own devices. She knocks on the door and waits.

And he opens it, leaning his arm against the door frame, holding the door close enough to him to keep her out. “Already leaving your celebration so early sweetling? A bit rude isn’t it?”

He tries and fails at not giving her a onceover. Her pin curls are shiny and perfect. The white ensemble she’s chosen is sweet and demure. All lace and satin with a white velvet _Bride_ sash. A little too modern for their make believe world. But he won’t fault her.

She shakes her head, red lips quirking. “I’m not leaving and you can stop hiding. I have a gift for you but you’ll need to be downstairs to see it.”

“Your fiancé won’t take kindly to my presence downstairs.” He rests his head against his arm. “Besides, you’re the bride. You should be _getting_ gifts not _giving_ them.”

She steps closer, innocently kisses him, then whispers in his ear when he doesn’t reciprocate. “You coming downstairs would be your gift to me.”

“What game are you playing?” He murmurs. 

“The same one we always do Petyr. Now come downstairs.” She tugs at his tie and smiles again. “And whatever happens during or after, remember it’s a gift for _you_ , even though it has to be presented in front of others. A thank you…for playing along with my changes.”

That alone could keep his interest piqued. She knows this. The way her heels tone her calves and change her posture is what makes him follow her. She knows this too. By the time she’s down the stairs she can hear his keys jangling against the door knob as he locks it.

Willas has noticed her disappearance. He’s not that much a drinker no matter how much Loras and Joffrey try. And they’ve been trying. She plops into his lap and kisses him in a way that’s not meant for the public eye when she returns. They can do anything here. That’s what Cat’s is for. The suspicion in his eyes melts under her lips.

“Willas your new game is you have to take a shot any time you and Sansa disgust the rest of us,” Joffrey yells over the band’s trumpets and cymbals.

A tray of shots appears and Sansa takes two off of the tray. “If you don’t take one then I’ll take both.”

He eyes her warily then lets her tip the vodka into his mouth. He grimaces but she kisses him again as a chaser.

“Take another one for that!” Margaery laughs before she stands to leave the group. She reaches for her future sister. “Sansa and I need to get ready for our big surprise!”

Willas groans but suffers through the second one when Sansa joins his sister. “What are you two doing?”

“You’ll see,” Sansa smiles before they disappear behind the curtain to go backstage.

****

The drummer rattles her drumsticks against the snare quickly to quiet the audience then smashes one against a cymbal when Loras gets onstage. He’s torn off his jacket, wearing nothing but suspenders and tight shorts. His cheeks are bright with rogue, eyes lined in charcoal, the very image of the Emcee of _Cabaret._

“And now, meine Damen und Herren.. Mesdames et Messieurs...” he starts with a horrendous German accent. “Ladies,” he stops to wink at Olyvar behind the counter. “And Gentlemen- _Cat’ssss_ Club is proud to present two _lovely_ young ladies who are about to be married in the morning. On their last night of freedom they wanted to do a special little performance for their men before they tie the knot. Give it up for the Fraulines you know and love…Margaery Tyrell and Sansa Stark!”

The boys in the audience whoop and wolf whistle, Willas gulps, and Petyr watches from his seat at the bar with a smirk. He knows exactly what Sansa’s playing at. The girls in the band start a jaunty tune and the pianist tinkles the keys when the bridal party steps out from behind the red velvet curtain. Gone are Margaery and Sansa’s pink bridal ribbons and white dresses, replaced with matching white silk nighties, thin enough to reveal the black lingerie underneath. Sheer black thigh highs with red stays keeping them up as the brides strut out to center stage to sit along the edge.

Margaery starts the song with a breathy, alto voice. Petyr’s impressed with the engineering and training that achieved that feat. A visible tremor goes down Tommen’s spine when she crooks her finger in a come hither motion. He’s less impressed with that.

“Mah-ma, thinks I’m living in a convent,” she breathes a laugh when the groomsmen and company push her groom toward her. “A secluded little convent…” she points her toe and touches his stomach trailing down, “in the southern part of France.” She pushes him back to the crowd gently.  

“Mah-ma,” Sansa begins in her sweet soprano voice that isn’t made for a song like this, but pleases him anyway. “Doesn’t even have an inkling that I am working in a nightclub. In a pair of lacy pants.”

She curls her fingers around the hem of her nightgown to hitch it upwards. Loras whistles when Willas refuses to. Cheeks flushing, barely visible in the dim light. When brides do performances like this there’s the chance that it will go wrong. It will be awkward. It will be the two brides making a fool of themselves with a lack of talent or a sense of embarrassment that prohibits their true talent from showing. This is not the case for Sansa and Margaery. Petyr would hire them in an instant if all of their performances were as sensuous as the first twenty seconds of this one.

They link arms and stand up to join the girls behind them as they turn around.

“So please sir,” they harmonize, with Margaery taking the low notes and Sansa going an octave above. “If you run into my ma-ma. Don’t reveal my indiscretion…”

Margaery croons the last slow bit of the introduction, “Give a working girl a chance.”

Then just like that there’s a flash of energy and their lingerie-clad, background bridesmaids break into a choreographed dance. Sansa and Margaery smile and shimmy, singing the lines of the chorus, taking proffered pure white feather boas to drape around themselves as they perform for themselves and their audience.

“You can tell my Papa that’s alright,” she tosses a wink in his direction and points at him, “Cause he comes in here every night!”

The girls follow up with the chorus call, “But don’t tell mama what you saw.”

The audience erupts into laughter that isn’t warranted and he plays along, laughs at the humor to make it seem like the morbidity of her referring to him as a father doesn’t bother him. Such a twisted song choice in a twisted place in a twisted world. He smiles.

It’s _his_ gift after all.

The girls start to make their way off of the stage, singing of their tour of Europe that mother believes is happening, dispersing into the crowd. Wherever their feet tread is the real stage now. While Sansa and Margaery’s attention remains solely on their soon to be grooms, the other friends and family of the bridal party aren’t left alone by the women. It’s as though it’s a regular night in Cat’s. Debauchery and drunkenness; a  blur of scantily clad women and fully clothed men. There is no dead look in any of their eyes though. This is a new experience for all of them. They lead such controlled lives outside these walls; in here there are no restrictions.

There are no spotlights tonight, but if there were they’d follow Sansa as she makes her way to him. His eyes don’t leave hers as they try to memorize the look she’s giving him with her back to her fiancé. Petyr can barely see Willas’s expression in the dark room but it feels murderous. She’s still singing along with the other girls as they harmonize about how pure they are.

Sansa’s as pure as red wine.

Then she’s in his lap, sitting sideways, hands hooked on his neck, glorious legs crossed and up in the air, “You can tell my uncle here and now ‘cause he’s my agent anyhow!”

A smack of a kiss hits his cheek and he barely even covers the shock, but he plays the role of _sleazy guardian_ when she leaves her feather boa around him. He plays it well, twirling the feathers in his fingers since he doesn’t have access to her hair.  And she may be off his lap in an instant, laughter and cheers still following wherever the silk nighties go, but Willas glares in his direction. He only has eyes for him since his shoulders are bare in comparison to Tommen’s draped with his sister’s feathery gift. It makes two of them caught off guard and unable to hide emotions well then. Petyr dares to raise his eyebrows with a smirk.

“You can tell my brother, that ain’t grim!” Margaery belts when she grabs hold of Loras and pulls him away from his over exaggerated embrace of Olyvar. “’Cause if he squeals on me I’ll squeal on him!”

There are shots and cheers and the men join in as the girls finish the song with the repetitive, “Don’t tell mama, please, sir. Don’t tell mama, please, sir. Don’t tell mama what you know!”

The band reaches their crescendo and the girls shhh as Sansa stands alone on stage. She isn’t even hiding that this song isn’t for Willas when she looks at Petyr with a finger to her poisonous red lips. “If you seem my mummy, mum’s the word.”

****

“That was a morbid choice.”

“They’re a morbid couple. Did you finish the tropical sector?”

“They’re putting the last grains of sand in as we speak.”

“I’m getting a drink. Don’t touch anything regarding the wedding. Double check that the families are both ready.”

****

There are cream colored tuxes and off white dresses. The only color in the garden is the flowers and the grass, even that green blanket is covered by chairs and a long white aisle. Everywhere there are thousands of flowers. Sansa thought the summer heat would have made them all wilt, but some gardener has designed them well. The smell is almost suffocating in the midsummer air. Something flutters in the bushes and she catches sight of a large bundle of moths. Their soft wings make no sound as they scuttle around in the leaves. No butterflies make their way here. It’s always their less ostentatious cousins. The sun is low in the sky, by the time they’re pronounced husband and wife it will be gone, the candles and lights will be put up, and the guests will disperse to their tables so the party can begin.

But first she has to walk down the aisle. Her father isn’t on her arm _. His_ father volunteered, he was already walking Margaery why not give them both an arm, but that won’t work for Sansa. Her brother should be the one to do it, but she’s chosen someone else. Robb stands at the end of the first row waiting skeptically as the barman who loved their mother prepares to walk her daughter down the aisle. Willas fumed for two days when she informed him who would give her away. Even before the bachelor party he was skeptical. But in the end he gives her what she wants. As he always does and always will.

So the wedding party walks down the stark white linen. The bridesmaids’ and groomsmen’s shoes don’t leave a scuff. The flower girls act accordingly, no tantrums, no violent throwing of flowers, just a light tossing of the rose petals and lilac all the way to the end of the aisle.  They land perfectly. The strings don’t play Pachelbel’s Canon in D. The little quartet and grand piano in the bright garden play a song that no one in the garden has ever heard before. Nobody bats an eye as they wait. They don’t understand, but they listen and stand for the brides anyway.

Margaery and her father wait beside Sansa and Petyr. They don’t understand the song either, but each woman got to choose specific things for their joint ceremony. Sansa got music.  Petyr’s hand is on her arm. He strokes the lace as they wait and watch. He hums along to the song, murmurs the words under his breath.

“Sing…us a song…a song to keep…us warm…There's…such a chill…such a chill.”

Then it’s their turn. Her turn. The music builds and she’s surprised that there isn’t sweat on the pianist’s brow with how hard she’s pounding the keys. The cellists and violinists arms don’t grow tired as they move back and forth. She knows her eyes should only be for Willas. His eyes are only for her after all. She smiles. Petyr kisses her cheek before he passes her off to her future husband. Leaving her with a whisper

“You’re mine.”

****

The day after she leaves he loses a match he was supposed to win.

The next day he’s still on the mend but he goes to the gym anyway. She’s with her _husband_ , the man he willingly walked her down the aisle to. Gave her away to. He imagines the bag as the perfect little bookworm professor. Imagines the sand seeping out as his dutiful love for his wife. Then his imagination shifts. The bag is himself; when they decided an engagement would be okay and he said he wouldn’t get allow his attachment to get in the way. Wouldn’t mind if she married him and kept him on the side.

The bag breaks and so does he. There’s only one other place he can go to stop thinking.

****

“Jaime what is going on with those moths? Their numbers have increased exponentially this round.”

“It’s the new lights. We think. There’s nothing we can do about them right now. But more importantly, someone needs to put out a memo about the behind the scenes fucking.”

“They’ve been _fucking_ them outside of the park?”

“Don’t you act as though you didn’t know sis. The technicians get lonely and use them when they repair them or clean them. Well, they’re _supposed_ to be cleaning them.”

“Fix the problem. Send the memo. And maybe I’ll fuck you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In any good Shakespearean tragedy Act IV is short and sweet and Act V is where everything crumbles.  
> Don't hate me too much. 
> 
> weekendareforwhiskey.tumblr.com


	5. Act V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” -Hamlet, Act II Scene ii

There’s a honeymoon that lasts two weeks, tucked away in a warm, tropical place that neither of them really cares for. Birds with vibrant feathers, giant sea turtles, crabs and fish and all the rest of the watery animal kingdom are right outside their door but they’ve got plenty to explore in their bed. Willas is required to make an appearance with his new bride at their family friend’s home. So they find themselves dressing appropriately… and planning an escape if the dinner is too long. Planning another escape is at the back of Sansa’s mind but she pushes it away. She shouldn’t entertain that thought. It’s a thread she’s learned not to pull too hard at for too long.

They arrive at a mansion, as yellow as the sun emblems that adorn the gate, the lamp posts and the metal door knockers as big as Sansa’s head on the door in front of them. A servant opens the door before they can even raise a hand to touch it and they walk in the foyer. The man leads them down the hall towards a room full of laughter. The servant goes ahead to introduce them and Sansa’s stomach drops when she recognizes the voice that speaks.

“Willas Tyrell? How punctual he is! Come in, come in! It’s so wonderful of you to join us. Come here and show us your bride. We hear she’s quite the beauty.” Oberyn Martell’s voice greets her. And she has to slip into another role.

He and Ellaria play it off well. Her smile is wide, showing off her sharp white teeth. “Well aren’t you something. Your name’s Sansa correct?” She nods. _Not Alayne_ Ellaria’s raised eyebrows add silently. “Join us. Come sit next to me.”

Willas tightens his hold on her but she let’s go with a squeeze and a smile.

“Newlyweds,” Oberyn laughs. “This is why you never get married. If you don’t get married then it’s like you’re newlywed all the time. I’m afraid you made a mistake Willas.”

“And you too Sansa.” Ellaria murmurs when she sits next to her.

There’s a deep ache in her heart and she knows she’s gone too far into the story. Lost herself. Lost Petyr.  The thread keeps unraveling, itching for her to pull away, but she keeps playing her part anyway.

*****

“Where’s Baelish?”

“He’s in the bar. Right there.”

“No that’s not him. Did he tell you he was coming in?”

“No. He said he wouldn’t come back until I called him. And _I_ haven’t called him.”

“He’s up to something.”

“Well his wife’s with another man. I’d be up to something too if you went off somewhere.”

“Stop trying to distract me Jaime. Find Baelish.”

*****

There’s a pathway to the cottage deep in the portion of the woods near Cat’s. A cutesy little woodchip pathway with handmade stepping stones. There was no electronic or modern helping hand there. He built it all with his own hands and Brune’s muscles. When Sansa had her second breakdown- long before Cat’s even existed in his own mind- he knew it was only a matter of time until she asked him to do the one thing he couldn’t. So he built the girl a cottage instead of destroying the creation he loved the most of them all. Their daughter Alayne.

It had only been five years since her creation. Sansa had stood by his side as he created Alayne’s code. A code that even Cersei knew nothing about. But when it reached two years and Alayne –who’d never been a baby, who’d only been an eleven-year-old girl- hadn’t changed, couldn’t change, he saw it in Sansa’s eyes. The love was fading. The mother of someone she hadn’t given birth to, couldn’t give birth to…she wasn’t up for that role. Alayne was _his_ child, not hers. _His creation_. So he built the house. Visited her on her creation day, lowered her cognition and curiosity levels so she wouldn’t hurt herself wandering to a place where someone could find her, and let her do as she pleased.

Sansa’s honeymoon, the strife she had unnecessarily written into their current storyline, has him making the trek deep into the woods earlier than Alayne’s creation day. The trees thin, the birds’ chirping ceases, and then he sees the Hansel and Gretel cottage. Bright yellow and blue paint instead of the edible fixtures created by a witch; a bright safe space in the dark evergreens. A guard of moths fluttering around the shutters at the front. Normally she’s out gardening, climbing trees, sitting looking up at the sky in wonder, but now she’s nowhere to be found.

He reaches the door and knocks. There’s no answer. No jostling of the lock. He knocks again with heart racing, mind jumping to conclusions. A couple of the moths scatter away. No one knows of this haven. A small unplottable sector on the map of the park. He created it long after Cat died. Jaime didn’t know about this place. So Cersei doesn’t either.

“Alayne?”

There’s no answer. He circles around the cottage, thinking she may be hibernating. There may be a malfunction in her wiring. Self-sufficiency is ingrained in her, but there’s still a small possibility of an issue.

Leaves crunch behind him and he turns to see the small brunette child running towards him. She leaps into his arms. He catches her even though the surprise almost knocks him over.

“Daddy! You’re back.”

He breathes in the fresh smell of her hair; fills his lungs with the breath that disappeared for a minute. There are needles mixed in the dark strands, dark as the tree trunks she’s evidently been climbing.

“Where were you?” _How did you leave the area when I wasn’t near you?_ Her eyes are as bright blue as Sansa’s, made more vivid by the darkness of her curls. He holds her closer. Soft warm skin tightly pressed against his chest; a state of the art system of technology right beneath the surface.  

“I climbed the tallest tree today! I followed a river to a lake and a town and right below the tree was a giant mansion!” Her tiny, high-pitched voice is full of excitement that fills him with dread. “There were three glass skylights, and dark wood, and super bright lights, and it was so much bigger than my house. I’d get lost there. So I came back. And now you’re here!”

Winterfell. He shifts her so she’s on his back, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. She feels as light as air. “When did you go there?”

“Today! Before you came. Does this mean we can have cake? Did you bring cake?” She tries to stick her hands in the satchel he’s got slung on his shoulder, but he bats them away.

“You left and came back today? Did you see anyone?” It’s only 9 in the morning. The 10-mile trek to Winterfell from her cottage would be a long one for anyone.

“Mhm. I can take you there if you want. It’s so pretty. Can we go there together?” She jabbers quickly, getting all the words she can in before he gets the chance to leave her. “After tea and cake and working of course.”

They walk in the house and he leans down so her head won’t hit the door frame. He’s conscious of the fact that she left his second question unanswered. Conscious of the fact that he might not be the only person aware of her existence anymore. “Maybe next time. We’ll make a day of it. How about we play a game?”

*****

They’re back from their honeymoon. Margaery and Tommen are too. All still living in the Tyrell family manor because there are so many rooms and Margaery just can’t bear to be away from her family. Sansa really has no choice. There’s nowhere else to go. Besides Cat’s. Robb and Jeyne are back in storage. Unnecessary for any storyline now.

There are different expectations. Willas is a professor now. Passing through every hurdle right before they married. Going right to work when they return. Tommen joins Loras at the race track. Nothing changes for Margaery and Sansa. They make flower crowns in the garden. They direct servants on what to clean and where and when. They wait for Tommen and Loras and Willas to come home. There’s never a time for her to go to Petyr. She’s never doing anything worthwhile but she’s always needed somewhere. The nagging at the back of her head tries to fight the domesticity, tries to remind her she’s the one who should be in control, but she succumbs to her new role anyway.

*****

“Daddy will you tell me a story before you leave?” She’s finishing up her work. The moth at her table is almost done, the wings and body smooth and perfect. She applies the antennae and suddenly it comes to life fluttering around the room and out the window. One of her many creations scattered around the park. He should have known then. He should have known she was Aware when the moths dotted every streetlamp, every surface of light across the park. But seeing her create them once every year isn’t the same as seeing her create them for fourteen days in a row.

“Of course,” he kisses her head when she hops into his arms. “What kind of story do you want me to tell?”

“I want to hear the one about the king of dragonflies.”

“That one huh? I don’t think I remember how it starts…Can you refresh my memory?”

Alayne’s dimples break his heart every time. She’s too perfect. In every way. If only Sansa could have loved her as he does. She lets him set her down on her bed. After tucking herself in she clears her throat and begins. “There once was a king of dragonflies. He had control over _everyone_ in the land except for his daughter,” she smirks here, one akin to his own, “the princess of the moths, who was the most intelligent, talented, graceful girl as far as their kingdom reached. Which was the _entire world_. One day she asked where her mother was-”

And he must break in here so as not to allow her to break his heart with her voice telling this story. “Oh yes, I remember now. Her mother was the queen of the dragonflies, but an evil wizard had captured her so they began a search to find her…” Alayne never falls asleep until a story is done. She stays awake until he utters “The End.” Then she’s out like a light. Unnaturally quick. Because she isn’t natural.

But today is different. She’s still awake when he moves to leave. Eyes wide.

“Daddy, will you visit sooner next time? I know we’ve been spending a lot of time together, but before…It had been _months_ since you visited. I get lonely here. It feels like you’ll leave me again.”

He hasn’t touched her cognition level. There isn’t a reason she should be able to tell how much time is between visits. She shouldn’t be able to understand the word _loneliness_ let alone feel it.

She’s learning without him. She’s active without him.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he whispers.

She smiles and immediately falls asleep. Unnaturally quick.

No matter how hard he tries to make himself believe she is, no matter how hard he’d tried to make Sansa believe, she isn’t natural. But she is Aware. 

*****

When Sansa walks down the hall toward the library she can hear Willas humming a tune. She’s never heard him sing before, never even knew he had the capabilities of carrying a tune.

She stops in the doorway as his tune gains lyrics. “Before your father hears us…Before all hell…Breaks loose.”

He turns from the work at his desk to face her. She gasps and covers her mouth. A dead look in his eye, a cruel smile on his lips; they don’t belong on such a sweet face. She leaves immediately to call Petyr from her bedroom. But he doesn’t answer. The phone rings and rings and she should be free to go to him but something’s stopping her. She hears one of the Tyrells calling her name and takes a shaky breath trying to invigorate her frozen limbs. Tries to figure out why she feels like she’s obligated to stay when she can leave anytime she likes.

*****

He’s sitting on his daughter’s bed trying to lull her to sleep with another story. A happier one. Written by someone else. When he finishes she stays awake, her face contracts with winces a couple of times.

“What’s wrong sweetheart?”

“A lady came to visit me. She had long hair. She seemed cold.”

“What color was her hair?”

“The same color as my house.”

“When did she visit you?”

“Just a few hours ago. I think… My head hurts when I try to think about her.”

“Do you remember what she said to you?”

It’s not Alayne’s sweet voice that speaks to him when she moves her mouth.

“You’re going to lose it all,” Cersei says using his daughter as a puppet.

He wakes up in a cold sweat. Sansa’s smell is gone from his sheets. He doesn’t even put shoes on when he runs into the woods.

*****

“Where the fuck are you _going_ Petyr?”

“Cers, come back to bed.”

“I told you, _don’t_ call me that!”

“I called you _Cers_ not…” He sighs. “Come on honey. Come back to bed.”

“Are there unplottable areas in the park? When he and Cat created it? Are there places you don’t even know about?”

*****

Margaery throws a party to announce her pregnancy. The first of many that will happen over the following nine months. Willas is busy at the school, as is expected, so Sansa endures the conspicuous whispers and sidelong glances at her own flat stomach. Margaery’s is just as flat, maybe even more so, but there’s the knowledge that a little version of her and Tommen is growing in there that they are celebrating. Sansa smiles, all pearly whites and pink lips because she is truly happy that it’s a Margaery and Tommen and not a tiny little Sansa and Willas. Her smile isn’t fake. Nothing will ever reside in her belly and it’s… freeing.

*****

Willas broaches the subject in the wrong way at the wrong time. They’re in bed where he’s warmed her up and he takes one look at her glazed eyes before he shifts her legs onto his shoulders. The quick movement pains her back and her head knocks against the headboard erasing the high she’s just come off from.

“Ouch, what are you doing?”

He’s exuberant and focused. “I want to try something. A different position.”

“Give me a bit of warning please.” She rubs her head and tries to move her legs off his shoulders. “Willas. Let me down.”

It’s rare that he’s the one who changes things up. Mostly content to learn from her, follow her lead, but there’s fervor in his eyes. A look that’s more alive than the deadly look from the library but oh so similar. His grip on her is unyielding. A feeling she’s never experienced from him. Fear and control.  

“This one will give you more pleasure.” He tries to lean into her, but she scoots back and away.

“Right now it’s not. In fact, _nothing_ is going to. What’s really on your mind?”

He lets her down and she matches his posture. She can’t tell if he’s malfunctioning. Can’t tell if his behavior is from a factor inside his wiring or a Winterfell factor. Her knees touch his, but that’s all she’ll allow. Her glare softens him and she’d be sorry he didn’t come if she wasn’t so annoyed.

“There’s familial pressure,” he murmurs.

“There’s always familial pressure. What specifically?” she bites back.

“Margaery’s pregnant and you – _we_ still haven’t…” he sighs. “I read this will help ensure a baby. You want that don’t you? It’s what we’re made to do after all.”

Her patience’s time is up. “No, I think you meant to say that’s what _I’m_ made to do. She gathers her robe from the bedpost and scrambles out of the four poster. The blue comforter stays wrapped around her leg and she shakes it off angrily. “You’re made to go to school and teach others and learn and gallivant freely. While _I_ fill the house with bouncing babies and delegate tasks to others and stay inside the house. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Never.”

She leaves the room. Closes the connecting door between their rooms and locks it. He wouldn’t go after her anyway. He never does. She’ll get an earful of conversation from Margaery the second she’s alone with her. She always does but she realizes she’s tired of this story.

*****

She’s a woman, not a trinket for a glass case. Or a book for the library for someone to pull out whenever they deem necessary. She’s no one’s but her own. She chooses where she goes and what she does. So she settles back, uncrosses her legs and rests them on the barstool next to her. There’s a new act on at Cat’s that has everyone’s attention. No doubt the dancers on stage will receive plenty of offers for a place to stay the night and, for the right amount, they may accept. A couple alone sets the scene, a tango that turns quickly when the woman spies another couple offstage. They join them. The four dance around one another, grazing backs, outstretched arms, until the band changes keys and they shift.

Woman goes with woman and man with man as the tempo increases. A dance of lingering gazes and heated touches. Lust. Sansa recrosses her legs when she watches the men exchange a kiss. When their hips meet and they sway together. Old traditional habits died the second night she came into Cat’s and went upstairs with Petyr. The men illicit a reaction that usually only Petyr can. Whether it’s with her or Oberyn.

By the time the dance is done and the next act starts, she’s aching for him. Much of the audience seems to feel the same. They get keys to private rooms, head to the dance floor to exercise frustrations with combinations of another kind. A woman catches her eye across the room, her arm wrapped around another woman. She crooks her finger twice but Sansa only smiles and shakes her head. With a pout, the woman shrugs and turns away.

“Maybe I can add you to the list of acts. Make you the grand finale,” Petyr says when he sits down on the stool occupied by her feet. “I think many would enjoy a more risqué version of your bachelorette party. I know I would.”

Seeing him makes her worries about the park and Willas and Cersei diminish. The headache that’s been pounding against her skull disappears when her gaze meets his. She grazes her heel along his calf. He rolls a cigarette on the bar. Three weeks is too long to be away from him. “But you would be up there with me. I was under the impression you didn’t really like the spotlight.”

“You’re right, I don’t but I would enjoy watching you up on that stage. A solo act.”

“Is that the way you want to welcome me home tonight? You want to watch me?” She leans in close, teeth grazing the outer shell of his ear. If he wants a show for the public she’ll put one on. She’ll do anything he asks of her because it’s still her choice to actually do it. “Want to watch me unbutton my dress and unpin my stockings. Watch me bend over, flash my _lacy pants_ and unbuckle my heels.” She digs one into his calf muscle for emphasis.

“No,” he grins and strikes a match, the red and yellow flame sizzling on the small piece of wood. He lights his cigarette and his lips seem to fight to quirk up. “You’ll leave those on.”

“Ah.” She repaints the picture in her mind before doing it out loud for him. He’s angry. She can feel it radiating but she knows what’s underneath. Sorrow. Loneliness. Just like her. “You want me to parade around you while you sit back and enjoy the view?”

“Doesn’t sound too bad but I need a show, not a view. You’re auditioning for your slot on the set list. This is your big break isn’t it?”

His smile grows more pronounced as he tells the story. Morphs it into one of his own image while she follows his lead. He blows the smoke away from her.

“Well, you won’t let me get to the _climax_. This is still the rising action.” The company around them is too busy with their own stories to notice, but she shifts to cover up her blatant grab of his crotch that sets him ramrod straight on his stool. “So, after I’m done parading about, showing you every asset I have, now we get to the fun part.” She plucks at the strap barely hidden under her dress; a bit of purple silk that peaks out from under his favorite blue dress. “These brassieres that they make women… they can be so restricting so it’ll have to go. Then I’ll unpin my hair to cover my cheeks because the way you look at a girl,” she laughs, “can make her blush a bit.”

His voice is hoarse when he grabs at her hand. “Sansa let’s go to our room.”

 _Our._ She swats him away anyway, rubs at the bulge that hardens in her hand.

“Then I’ll get on your lap, straddle it with these stockings you can’t seem to get enough of and just tease you a bit. But it won’t be my hand rubbing you off. That’s only your third favorite way to get off, correct?” She doesn’t give him time to even try to answer her rhetorical question. “Quicker than you’d probably like, I’ll step away and get on that luxurious bed of yours.” Her hands and legs leave him alone, untouched, and she smiles at the look of astonishment on his face.

He grabs her and pulls her up to walk swiftly out the back door to the stairs. He’d run if he trusted her heels not to break. She would too.

“I don’t want you to tell me,” he growls when he shuts his bedroom door, kisses her abruptly. It’s as messy and sweet as it always was before the honeymoon. “I want you to show me.”

“Make me want to,” she whispers in his ear.

She circles around him while unbuttoning the blue dress, heels click against the wood flooring. When she’s slipped off her dress, let it fall to the ground, he moves her towards the bed. Her knees hit the edge and he tilts her head back until she’s lying against the dark purple comforter. He presses himself against her, noses along the tops of her breasts while the rest of the skin is still hidden beneath the dark purple lace fabric. Her sigh is his cue to back off. Leave her to finish her performance. He pulls up his armchair and sits back, legs spread, shoulders at ease.

He gestures dismissively with his fingers, a signal that’s at odds with his darkened eyes, the pupils dilated, hair wild. “Go on then.”

Sansa sits up to mirror his position.  Her bra straps slip down her arms and she pulls the lace off as gracefully as she can. Petyr lets out a chuckle at her brief struggle and she smiles.

“Like I said, they’re very restricting,” she tosses it to him. “That’s much better.”

He catches it and holds it up with a few fingers. “I’ll have to agree with that. I like the matching.”

“Did you miss me?”

“Did _you?_ ”

“Why else would I be here?”

He glances away, worries the purple lace between his fingers, finds a point on the wall to concentrate on and says, “Maybe it’s all part of _your_ narrative.”

And the headache is back. The spool of thread unraveling inside her head about her choice and her story and why she needs to be in charge of it all. But she lets it go.

“Right now,” she says as she brings her hand to her chest, lightly traces her fingers along the skin to catch his attention again. It works when her touches reach the only bit of purple she still has on. “The only narrative I’m concerned with is between my hand and myself. But I think I need a little help.”

His footsteps are light and calculated but the purple lace shorts are yanked off and tossed away with no inhibitions.

*****

“I’m tired of watching them.”

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“Of course I am. If I wasn’t a woman our father would have made sure I had this much power when I came out the womb.”

“He probably would have tried before then. Aimed for it at conception.”

It’s the first time she’s smiled in years. But it’s not Jaime’s joke that brightens her eyes.

“Let’s go.”

*****

“You were gone all night.”

“I went to Winterfell. I haven’t seen my family since the wedding.”

Sansa continues to repair her bike. Ensures the chains are well-oiled. The tires are full of air. The clicking of the gears is a comfort. She tries her best to ignore the huffs from Willas.

“You should have invited me. I’m your husband after all.”

“I just needed some time to myself.”

“You just needed some time with him.”

“Irrational jealousy doesn’t look well on anyone Willas.”

“Neither does cheating.”

She wants to kill Cersei or whichever technician or writer messed with his levels. This isn’t how he’s supposed to act. This isn’t how any of this story is supposed to go. And she just has to fix it herself. She wipes her hands then drops the dirty rag as she stands up to cradle his face. There’s still black grease on her thumb that won’t wipe away. It’s when she’s noticing this detail that he pushes her roughly against the wall.

“What the fuck Willas?” she yells. Her eyes swim with disoriented tears.

His hands encircle her throat as he presses her against the wall.

“‘We hope that you choke.’ That’s the ending to that song you chose to play while you walked down the aisle with him.”

“Willas don’t do that. I don’t like it.” Her breathing becomes shallow as he strokes the skin protecting her larynx.

“What if I want you to choke? Both of you. What if I want to kill you both with my own hands?” He presses tightly.

“Cease all motor functions,” she pronounces clearly.

A devilish look enters his eyes and he smiles as he continues. “I loved you and you- Do you even know how many times I’ve loved you? Watched you play wife and mistress and all those insipid-”

She pushes her weight against him, her hands are trapped under his solid stance, but he doesn’t move. “Cease all motor functions!”

He tightens his grip and adds his second hand to her throat. There’s a fail-safe way to disorient him if she can just get him to stop pressing his body against hers. She twists her neck to the side; he tightens more but straightens his arm while doing so. With that movement, she gains some space to move and jerks up to hit the spot just beneath his left ear. His eyes widen, become blank, his hands loosening for a moment that’s long enough for her to escape his grasp.

Sansa scurries onto her bike, pedaling out of the garage and onto the grass next to the gravel drive. Willas doesn’t follow her but his words do.

“Go to him! Run away. I’ll find you. They know where you are and so will I.”

There shouldn’t be a possible way that Cersei contaminated one of Petyr’s creations, but then again she doesn’t know if the Tyrell line was solely created by him. He never discusses the specifics of the coding with her anymore. Just solves any issues she has. Except for the moths. He never dealt with them.

Whatever has come over Willas in recent weeks is Cersei’s fault. She knows it. She knows that the woman would never follow Petyr’s orders for long when they didn’t coincide with her own wants and wishes. There’s a plan to sabotage his company. There’s no way Willas would be programmed to know the song without Cersei or Jaime tampering with his functions. The small little modern quirks adding up to this violent version of himself.

It’s eerie when she rides through town. She meets no one. The square is a lush, ornate mausoleum. The library. The stores. No families or guests in sight. It all seems untouched by anyone but her. She pedals madly. No one is there to follow her. There are barely any sounds even. Her eyes stray from the road every once in a while equal parts hoping and fearing that someone may step out and stop her.

A sigh of relief only comes when she’s only a half a mile away from Petyr. They need to leave she decides. Exit the park together, fix whatever mess Cersei’s making, and then control the park from a safe distance. Or leave it all behind, a small voice says. It’s the ghost of the curly-haired AI squeezing her neck that helps her decide which one she prefers.  

*****

She tosses her bike against the brick wall. The back door is unlocked, Brienne and Olyvar are nowhere to be seen or heard, and she rushes up the stairs to his room. He isn’t there though. Bile threatens to come up when she thinks that Cersei’s already gotten here before her. Dispatch Willas to take care of her and it would have been easy for Cersei to ask Petyr to come into Winterfell headquarters. Take both of them out through separate means.

“Petyr!” She calls anyway. She’ll search the bar up and down before she makes the trek herself to see Cersei and Jaime.

There’s no one in the bar though. No one returns her calls although she repeats his name over and over. Tears start to come to her eyes when she races outside. The sun is setting quicker than usual. Sinking lower and lower before her eyes in seconds. She can imagine the people in charge lowering the bar of the sun, increasing the moon’s set hours of appearance.

A sense of dread slides down her back like an ice cube. The slick, slippery feeling heightens her emotions. The tears fall from her eyes, down her cheeks, pooling in the fabric of her dress or falling down to the ground below her.

“Petyr!” She calls again, not caring if Cersei is in Winterfell watching a screen. Taking pleasure from the image depicted. There could be no way he’s gone. She would have known. She would know. She would know if her partner was taken away from her. It’s shock that stops her tears when she finally hears a sound that isn’t emanating from her.

“Sansa!” His voice comes from the thicket of trees and bushes near the road to Winterfell. “Sansa! What’s happened?”

She runs unnaturally fast, cuts through the grass, the mud and damp dead leaves only to hear him call her name again. The sound lies behind her and she turns to try and see him but her eyes are too clouded. The woods much darker than usual. It feels like a trick. A Cersei trick.

“Petyr stay where you are. Let me find you.”

“I’m right here Sansa. Just follow the sound of my voice. I’m right here. I love you. I’m right here. Sansa I love you.”

He keeps talking, letting her track him down reasonably unlike her immediate response of running with reckless and blind. She cuts through one bush and sees the look of worry on his face. Her hands reach him first and then the rest of her body crashes into him. He combs his finger through her hair, tries to brush away the twigs and leaves that have attached to her in her mad search. Her tears keep falling, soaking into his shoulder, wetting his neck while she clutches onto him and he to her.

“We need to leave,” she murmurs now that she knows he’s alive.

“What’s happened?” His eyes scan the area as he holds her.

“Willas-something- Cersei’s fucking with the intelligence. He was Aware and remembered the previous storylines he was part of.”

“Did he hurt you?” He pulls back to assess her face, her body, her neck. His hands graze her cheeks; try to wipe away the tears that keep coming.

The woods are completely dark now. He glances up. Just two days ago the moon was as bright as the sun, casting enough light that it felt like daylight. That bright light is dimmer now. The white cratered light isn’t a full disk, it’s waning. A sliver of darkness overtaking the light.

“He wouldn’t shut down under my command. We need to leave Petyr. Everyone is gone. She’s wiping the park.”

 “I’ll go to Winterfell and check his system. Maybe the update didn’t work with him.” Petyr sighs. This speech has happened before. They’ve been through this before. The only addition is an entire park wipe. “It’s been happening a lot lately. The reveries aren’t sitting well now that Jaime’s gone.”

She pulls away from him in shock. “No, we need to _leave_.” Her breaths come in gasps that she tries to control. Tries to reconnect her lungs with her brain but all she gets is the tears disappearing. “Cersei has been trying to take this all away from you. She’s going to succeed if we don’t leave for good.”

Petyr shakes his head in disbelief. “She isn’t going to get away with it. We’ll fix it. Let’s go get some different clothes and we’ll drive up to Winterfell.”

Sansa doesn’t reply. With lips pursed she makes her way to the makeshift path that she missed in her mad dash into the trees. They’ve just reached the car when her posture stiffens.

“Petyr this isn’t the real life. I don’t want to be here anymore!” she cries suddenly and faces him again. The sliver of a moon behind her now. “We need to go back to reality.”

“This _is_ better than reality!” he snaps back. They’ve had this argument too many times for him to be patient with her. “We can just change the story. I’ll go right now and check the update. Cersei’s undoubtedly fucking it up but I’ll fix it. We’ve gone through this before. You hate it out there. Your parents are dead. Your siblings hate you. Why do you want to leave a perfect world?”

He cradles her face with his hands. Centers himself through her. Wipes at the sticky salt stains on her cheeks. All he sees is anger in her eyes but it could just be a reflection of his own.

“Why leave my side? Why leave what we can control? Do you want your brothers and sisters? We can bring them back. I can build your happy family again if that’s what you want…”

“We can only control it so long as I have money. So long as you have power. Cersei is trying to sweep the company from under your feet! Just because you created it doesn’t mean-”

“Stop worrying about Cersei We don’t-”

“We do Petyr. You don’t control this place anymore. She does. And I’m helping her!”

His stomach drops. The dream of Cersei speaking through Alayne too awful to forget about. “What do you mean?”

“The money. All the money I give her to play this stupid game. And we’re not even enjoying it anymore.”  She runs her hands through her hair, paces in the dirt. “And this stupid storyline. It’s torn us apart and it’s all my fault. She wanted this. She used this to her advantage.”

“Sansa we’re not _torn apart_.” He reaches for her but she walks away from him faster. “Sansa stop!”

They both stare at one another for a moment. Processing everything. Trying to figure out what to say next. He realizes she’s waiting for him. She’s said her piece. He has to decide.

“Let’s just go to Winterfell and work from there.”

*****

The road to Winterfell is a windy one. It weaves back and forth like a mountainous road since Winterfell is a mountain. The park itself a valley at its base. They’re both silent until headlights appear in their rearview mirror. Petyr’s grip on the steering wheel tightens as he pointedly ignores the coming car.

Sansa’s eyes go to the side mirror. She knows that car.

“It’s Willas.”

His threat still rings in her mind. The road seems steeper than usual. Her mother and father died on this road. _I’ll find you. They know where you are and so will I_.

Petyr’s foot presses harder against the gas pedal and she wants him to stop. He’ll be sure to run off the road if he goes any faster. The car doesn’t gain any speed behind them. Petyr glances up in his rearview mirror so it’s Sansa who catches the first glimpse of the oncoming car that is driving more in their lane than the left lane. Their headlights off or nonexistent.

“Pe-” she chokes on her cry as he swerves dangerously around a curve to avoid the black car. Petyr’s hands could break with how hard he’s clutching the wheel as they take a sharp turn. Her hands grip the passenger seat and she wonders if that’s what her mother did as well. Or what her father did. She never knew who was driving. Driving didn’t matter when they were tumbling down a hill anyway.

The black car misses them though. A crash resounds behind them. Screeching tires and the crunching, splintering of metal assaults their ears. Neither looks back at the mess. They can’t harm them at this moment anymore. But whatever awaits them at Winterfell is what worries her now.

*****

The hallways of Winterfell are empty too. As empty as the town. But Petyr didn’t witness that emptiness for himself so he continues to search.

“No one is here. We need to go,” she pleads with him as he rifles through Cersei’s desk for some clue. Some information that will help him. “Petyr we almost died and you still think we’re in control.”

“If they actually wanted us dead we would be dead Sansa.”

She fumes clicking her Oxfords against the carpet. Her dress is gone, replaced with jeans, a cardigan, and a collared shirt. Petyr’s costume is replaced with his suit again. They’ve shed their personas and now they both have decisions to make.

“I don’t want to leave alone Petyr,” she murmurs.

The office is silent. The lights so bright in comparison to their make-believe world they’ve spent so long living in. She wants to protect her eyes from the LEDs. He keeps rifling through the drawers until he finds what he's looking for with a cry of frustration.

“But I will. If you make me choose I will leave alone. And I won’t come back.”

He straightens up and eyes her warily. His missing notebook full of coded information in his hand. She’d always left without warning in the past. Never given him any notice. Came back months later. He can see that she has truly given up on this. Something in her has changed. A switch flipped to make her realize that she doesn’t want to stay in this sterile constructed world. He tries to swallow his guilt and pride.

He drops the notebook on the desk and takes her hand in his.

“Let’s go to the train station," he says because he knows they’ll be back. He'll fix it. They'll be back. He would never leave Alayne forever. 

*****

Petyr starts to worry as much as Sansa has worried the entire time when they still don’t see anyone when they arrive at the platform. There’s no train. No AI greeters at their stations. The lights are on full blast, a buzzing emanating from them. He pulls out his phone to check the news, to see if he’s missed something but he has no service on the platform. A strange occurrence. Sansa’s attitude has brightened immensely since they left Cersei’s office. She kisses his cheek. Her fingers play with his hair. She muses about the things they'll do when they get back to her apartment in New York. 

Finally, the silent train pulls up and the doors to all the compartments open. They make their way towards the nearest one when she stops him.

“Are you absolutely certain that you’re okay with this? With leaving?”

He smiles because he knows it won’t last. They’ll be back in five months at the most. He’ll replace Cersei and everything will be fine. But Sansa doesn’t need to know all of that. All she needs to know is, “I’ll go with you wherever you go Sansa.”

The emotions that cross her face before she kisses him are ones he wishes he could code precisely.

He grabs her hand again and they walk to the compartment. Once he enters it her hand slips from his grasp. He looks back at her in confusion. Her eyebrows crinkle in confusion. A frown on her lips. She tries to step forward, freezes, and then the confusion turns to fear.

“I can’t move Petyr,” she says. Her eyes are watery, unshed tears waiting to fall. Her body straight as a board whenever she attempts to move her limbs. “What’s going on? Why can’t I move? _Why can’t I move_?”

He watches her for a moment trying to pinpoint the force field that’s keeping her from joining him on the train. There’s a jittery motion in her pupils, her eyelids blinking too quickly, and then it’s like a comet in the dark early morning. The tears are gone from her eyes, but they’re starting to brim in his own when he realizes.

“No.” Too numb to even shake his head as he falls to his knees out of the train compartment. “How did they even-? How did she-?” his sentences are left unfinished, questions trailing because he knows. Cersei was strong in his moments of weakness.  

It takes a while for the blonde force of a woman and company to make their grand entrance. By the time they arrive at the platform his tears have dried. The only evidence is the stains on his cheeks. Sansa’s inability to speak came soon after her motor functions froze. He couldn’t allow her to stand like the hundreds of AIs in the warehouses, waiting for their destruction, so Cersei finds them with Sansa’s immobile body cradled against his own.

“If you would have moved her two steps away she could have at least been a partner for conversation,” Cersei smiled smugly. “We were dealing with the last of your batch. Destroying them, that is. It’s been a busy day. Company takeovers tend to tire a woman out.”

“The show’s over it doesn’t matter,” he croaks.

“She’s quite the actress isn’t she? So realistic,” she pronounces with her quiet voice. In all their time together he’s never heard the woman raise her voice once. Everyone can hear her and she doesn’t even have to try to get their attention. “Jaime could you pull her back online?”

Her twin pulls up Sansa’s profile on his tablet. One of their rubber-suited minions pulls her from Petyr’s grasp as her eyes flutter closed. Petyr doesn’t even outstretch his arms to pull her back. Just lets the man yank her from his arms. He wonders if someone has turned his motor functions off as well as a sense of detachment overtakes him. The detriment of being a human he supposes.

“Just a hard reboot. You know how it is with this artificial intelligence. Takes a bit of time.” Cersei shrugs. “In the meantime, let’s have a chat.”

Petyr looks up at the woman. Her golden hair haloed by the fluorescent lights above them. The white reflects off of everything almost blinding his sensitive eyes. “I’m not giving you the park.”

“You will, but don’t you want to know how we masterminded this?” She gestures to Sansa’s lifeless form, standing on her own without any help.

“No, I don’t want to hear you pat yourself on the back for nothing.”

“But it wasn’t for nothing Baelish.” A laugh emits from her poisonous pink lips. He notices she’s forgone the dark lipstick of stained wine today. It really must have been a busy day for her. “See, while we kept you occupied playing make-believe in here…We bought, traded, and drained all of your holdings and assets in the _real world_. You have nothing, therefore you have no control. Your worst fear came to fruition. The number of times I’ve had to listen to you give monologues to this-” she gestures pointedly at Sansa “-about your lack of control is awful. I can’t imagine how you thought a _real live_ person would listen to you drone on and on.”

“That means nothing. I still have control.” He scoffs from his kneeling position on the ground.

“We have the coding now. It’s not like opening night when you and Catelyn were hoarding all of the secrets. People don’t care for your _reveries_ either. They want sex and violence and we can finally provide them that. And only that. Without you.”

“Jaime what do you think of that?” Petyr directs at Cersei’s lover.

He looks up from the tablet, blatant confusion etched upon his features. With a glance at his sister he speaks up, “I don’t understand what you mean. I agree with Cersei completely. There’s no use for any of _your_ personal touches. I can write and create them just as well as you now.”

Sansa wakes up with a blink of her eyes as if it’s a demonstration of Jaime’s point. Her eyes may be open but she’s still unconscious. The true base form of an AI. It kills Petyr to see her like this so he continues on.

“It’s interesting you put it that way.” He smiles coldly and stands up finally. A sharp pain flies up his leg and he winces. “There is someone who can write code and storyline as well as me. Well, two someones. One of them is dead. And the other…you aren’t him. He’s gone. Cersei do you remember the day you and Jaime fought about the park and its future? When he and I wrote this narrative and designed the town? About hmmm, how long ago was it? A year ago?”

“What does this have to do with anything?” She asks, annoyance coming off with every word. When Petyr’s only response is a raised eyebrow she sighs. “Take care of the trash boys. She’s the last one.”

Jaime and the rubber-suited goons move to take Sansa but Petyr speaks up.

“Cease all motor functions.” The men stop, leaving only Jaime in control. “Jaime… find Brienne.”

He stops in his tracks. It would never have worked for as long as the ruse did if he didn’t choose a different command. Jaime was surrounded by people saying, _Cease_ _all motor functions_ every hour. He needed a personal touch to ensure Cersei never found out until the right moment. Petyr takes the tablet from his hands and powers the other three down. Once he’s given Sansa full control of her faculties he turns to Cersei’s still stunned form.

“Don’t look so surprised. He never actually came back after that fight.”

Petyr remains stoic. No pleasure is taken from the truth when the same trick has been played on him. Sansa watches quietly, understanding now who she is in this world when he raises her level of cognizance to the highest it can be. He’ll give her a choice later when they’re alone. Cersei’s eyes water and he waits for the tears to fall. A sight he’s never seen. More than ever he wants the water to fall from her eyes.

“I knew one day you’d pull a coup the likes of this. Jaime reluctantly took control of my actual shares and we left a skeleton to throw you off. One word from me and he can give me the entire company once again.”

Behind them, the train’s doors close with an electric hum. Catelyn’s voice recorded 10 years ago rings throughout the platform. “Thank you for visiting Winterfell. Come play again soon.”

“I always hated that phrase,” he laughs bitterly. “Yet Cat insisted.”

“Petyr,” Sansa pleads quietly. “Let’s go back to the bar.”

“In a moment,” he replies as he watches Cersei take in Jaime’s artificial form. Her hand grazes his chiseled cheeks and when he doesn’t respond she crumples.

“Why would he betray me like that?”

“Because you betrayed him. You tricked yourself into believing you both had the same vision when you didn’t. You lost him. It’s your fault.”

Sansa reaches out to grab his hand. Steps in front of him to block his view of Cersei. “Petyr don’t. Let’s go.”

“Then that makes two of us,” Cersei spits. Solid gold turned molten. The tears finally break but he doesn’t take pleasure in the liquid dripping in torrents from her eyes.

“You’re right.” He doesn’t break his gaze on Sansa even though she’s trying very hard to get him to walk away. He won’t. He needs to know. Her furrowed brow, the perfect red hair just as he remembered, cheeks dotted with tiny smatterings of freckles. So much painstaking detail. He’s still looking at her when he directs his next question at Cersei. “When did she leave? Which time did she actually not come back?”

Sansa closes her eyes and shakes her hanging head. He goes through the years. The storylines they’ve gone through. The happy newlywed mayor and his wife in control of the town. That was early. The traveling acting troupe ingénue and the stagehand. That was their first huge fight. The first time she left him. That followed with the time they tried to make a family but the child never grew old. Destined to be a young artificial copy of what could have been. The now hyper Aware Alayne was still somewhere in Winterfell. Wandering the woods. Adventuring in her world, waiting for another visit from her father since her mother couldn’t bear to see her again. Couldn’t take the heartbreak. That had brought them back to the true land of make-believe. The most sinful story he’d come up with yet. A boxing bar owner on the outskirts of town in an illicit relationship with the young tragic socialite marrying the man-child from the richest family in town. A direct parallel of his first love. His partner. He’d tried so hard to make Sansa his Catelyn. He assumed it was Alayne that truly broke her. He’d spent too long dreaming up this storyline to see that the Sansa who’d played along wasn’t the real one.

“That’s the best part,” Cersei speaks up again. Her tears done falling.

“Don’t, Cersei!” Sansa yells and turns to the woman. “You don’t need to do this either.”

“Oh, you gave her her _full_ faculties, did you? That wasn’t very kind of you. That was the problem with the ones we spent all day destroying. They were having existential crises. Couldn’t understand what their mission was in this world that they were apart of but had no control of. Too smart for it really.” She laughs and smiles wickedly at Sansa. “Do you want to do the honors _sweetling_? He might appreciate it coming from you. Since you’re not real.”

Sansa flinches at the vitriol, the truth of the matter. She turns and shakes her head quickly as Petyr touches her face. “Don’t listen to her.”

“She was never here!” Cersei yells at him. It’s less frightening than her quiet voice. Too shrill he realizes. With no weapons but the truth, she can’t hurt him physically but it doesn’t make her statement any less damaging. “She was never here. She was never _real_. She _died_ in that car accident with the rest of her family. _We_ engineered that.” Her hysteria calls for action so she pushes Lancel down. He falls with a thud. Unbreakable as a deactivated robot. “ _We_ knew that if we killed them –killed Catelyn- it would kill you. But I wanted more than that. We created a story that only you would be so blinded by love that you would believe it. We wrote those stories. Spread those lies about the family surviving the parents. So we could create the one Stark you could fall in love with again, the one who could replace the woman who never loved you. The woman who only _fucked_ you to get what she wanted.”

She kicks the other two down. Her heel snaps with the force and she yanks both shoes off, tosses them at Jaime’s lifeless form. “If we could make you believe she survived and that she _needed_ to come back to her mother’s creation, that she just needed _a piece of her family to believe in since the real world wasn’t worth it anymore_ … that was Jaime’s little gift by the way. I guess he didn’t inform you about the extent of our plans during your deal. Tiny little details he didn’t feel the need to disclose I suppose.”

Petyr closes his eyes when Sansa strokes his face. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

“She was his best work. Looking just enough like Catelyn to tempt you, old enough too, but still maintaining the purity and heart of a dead 12-year-old. Kind of disgusting if you think about it.”

Petyr laughs, a broken choke of a sound. “We’re two of a kind then. You can’t play too disgusted with me. At least I wasn’t fucking a blood relation. A twin no less. No wonder all of _this_ Jaime’s stories had incestuous twins in the background. He was created to please you and your wishes. How self-centered can you be really?”

“At least he was real before!” Cersei replies as if she’s trying to freeze him with her cold words. “You never fucked a real person after Catelyn though. Sansa always was and always will be artificial.”

With that Sansa’s demeanor changes completely. A determined look takes residence in her eye as she whips around to take Cersei by the throat. The woman tries to push her off, tries to hit her beneath the left ear, but there’s no use. Her balance fails her, Sansa’s too strong, and they both tumble to the ground. Petyr watches shell-shocked with sick satisfaction as the woman he’s loved strangles the life out of the woman who’s toppled his world. He almost wishes Sansa would have bashed her head in against the white electric light tiles between them just so he could watch the blood drain from her. It’s not as satisfying watching her face lose expression as she loses life.

It takes a moment but finally, she’s as lifeless as the artificiality around them. Sansa’s shoulders heave and he can hear the choking sobs coming from her mouth. Petyr pulls her up and holds her shaking body to him.

“I’m sorry. There’s so much going on in my mind. The information the- I can’t…I can’t…Petyr it hurts.”

With her tears pooling on his shoulder he whispers, “Do you want to stay or do you want to go?”

“Do I even have a choice? Just kill me Petyr. Destroy me like you destroyed Alayne.”

“I didn’t.”

Her tears are still falling, heaving breaths still racking her body when she looks up at him.

“She’s alive?”

He nods. “She’s in a cottage. In the woods. I never destroyed her. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.”

“Will you take me to her? Before I choose?”

*****

When they meet again he wonders. How he could have missed it. How he could have been so blind. He spent his life creating intelligence just like this Sansa and he missed it. He wonders whether the real Sansa would have- But he stops himself there. This is the only  _real_ Sansa he's ever encountered. He tosses the girl with her bike to the side. Instead, he focuses on Alayne hugging Sansa. The affection that Sansa holds her with now. Such a change from before. It's a look of love and adoration and most of all _understanding_ now. One thing Sansa had never been programmed to have with Cersei controlling her every move. He watches her gaze at the moths that flutter around the home. He wonders why he doesn't mind that this is how it ends for him. 

*****

There’s a cottage in the woods of an abandoned theme park. A park where guests of any kind could come to escape the reality of their worthless world for a price. After the murder of Winterfell’s CEO, guests stopped coming. There was only a small group of people that wanted to go to a make-believe world where the make-believe characters fought back. And the creator didn’t want those people coming around so he disappeared. The park was shut down. The technology sold to the highest bidders. So they could wreak havoc in the _real world_ too. The unwanted bits left to rot.

The cottage was the only place that no officer, no FBI agent, no employee of the once prestigious technological feat knew about. A small little house in the woods. An aging father, a perfect mother, and an ageless daughter lived a fictitious life as if it was real and told stories about the past as if it was all fiction.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow it's done. With like a happy-ish ending? I mean it's as happy as it can be. 
> 
> Way back when, this started as me shouting to the Tumblr void asking for ideas of things people wanted in a PxS fic.  
> A few people replied with some ideas they wanted that lead to my version of a wannabe Peaky Blinders AU at first about infidelity that didn't have a point besides the infidelity and I didn't know how to turn it into a story rather than a one shot. 
> 
> But then Ramin Djawadi came to me while I was driving to school listening to the Westworld score and suddenly my rough draft outline of possible plot points and endings had "SCRATCH IT ALL IT'S A WESTWORLD AU" at the end of it. 
> 
> (Sorry to everyone who doesn't watch Westworld and spent a majority of the time thoroughly confused BUT ALSO thank you for sticking through until the end of this little mashup. I really enjoyed writing most of it. <3)
> 
> Thanks for commenting and leaving kudos as well. This one was a fun one and perhaps one day I'll revisit the idea of a strictly 20th century AU with no modern spins on it. 
> 
> Up next from me? Who the fuck actually knows. I'd like to say it'll be Not a Political Science Major but I've been saying that since November. *shrugs*


End file.
